Technology

It's not just that people are "perverts", it's that they're wearing a camera on their face constantly filming people who have a reasonable expectation to privacy. Even in public most countries would protect that expectation in a lot of cases.

So unless somebody wants to be violently assaulted and their glasses ripped and smashed off their face, then it might be best to not buy them at all, or only wear them in private.

The real issue in my mind is privacy and autonomy. I want to be able to walk around without the expectation that I'm recorded. I'm male and don't have the same the impact from the creep-factor, and absolutely get it, but the implications are larger than dudes looking at women.

Big difference from a "I am in public and can be recorded" to a "I am in public and I should expect to be recorded". Another big step to "that recording is on a mega-corp server and can be viewed, reviewed, used as training data, cross-referenced, and otherwise processed without my consent because the person recording me consented; I really think this is the the crux, as I can have a tacit approval to be recorded by walking to a store, but I haven't given any approval for my likeness, my position, my emotions, etc to be recorded by walking down a street. A TV show using unsuspecting public will get people to sign waivers granting limited rights to their footage afterwards, or blur faces -- or did -- before retaining and publishing.

I walk into a grocery store and I can expect that they have a CCTV (note the CLOSED CIRCUIT part) system to be able to review what happened in the case of a robbery or whatever. The tech of my childhood meant that the store had a stack of VHS tapes, or maybe DVD/HD/SSD that rotated and could hold (lets way exaggerate) a decade of footage. A decade after I left the store, there was no record I was there -- maybe a receipt if I used a card, but I don't actually know the PCI retention requirements. With cheap storage and 3rd-party cloud-hosted camera systems, the business no longer owns the records of my presence, and has only a data retention 'agreement' with the provider. I didn't agree to my footage being used for any purpose other than the one implicit for safety/loss-prevention by visiting the store. Any use beyond that should be unreasonable search and seizure, but it's not being done by the government, so isn't illegal or something I could sue over.

Very similar situation to Flock/generic-ALPR-esq cameras. The trend used to be that unless you were somehow a person-of-note that you had effective anonymity in public: It took resources to monitor an individual's movements, facial expressions, actions, etc. It no longer does, and so all this is effectively captured and stored in perpetuity. The real problem is that it's everywhere. Good luck finding a grocery store that doesn't have some cloud-provider surveillance. Good luck finding a gas station that doesn't. Good luck even driving to a specific store that isn't recording you constantly because you pass several cameras on the way and some are specifically designed to track your movements.

Bringing it home to the current topic of 'smart' glasses. I haven't consented to being recorded by random person walking down the street with Meta's camera on their face. Meta has no ethical rights to my "content", regardless of whether the owner of the glasses has agreed to give Meta a license to their video as part of setting up the glasses. Ethical vs Legal, but we can keep pushing back.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but this shit is pervasive and won't stop until we force it.

I feel weird even about wearing my sunglasses indoors. I do it only because I like bringing one pair out the door, it's very sunny out, and they're long-range prescriptions that help me read menus and signs.

Aside from the cameras, the obvious issue, as is with cops, is just constantly hiding your eyes for little reason.

Being accidentally recorded in the background of someone's photo or video is one thing, and it happens all the time, that is fine

But we all know it doesn't end there.

These glasses allow secret recording

Of your children at the playground

Of your wife and children at the beach

Of your wife and you at a nude beach

Then all the videos will be picked up by Facebook and fed into their AI. your kids, your family, you, will forcibly be used for AI proposes, you will also be identified, your locations will be stored with it and sold to the highest bidder. Your facial expressions will be determined, what you all were wearing, what you were doing. All of it will be not used but abused to hell and back

If I see such glasses making a recording of me and or my family that will be the end of those glasses

Others have said it better than I ever could, but in my own words, even IF every person who bought these was the epitome of the highest moral and ethical standards, I would still be uncomfortable due to the way-too-high possibility of them being 'hacked' remotely which would still have the potential to destroy lives

This is the glasshole stigma all over again

Good. Good. Let your hate become your strength

Good

Look, I actually want smart glasses, but there is absolutely no reason for there to be cameras in them.

Just give me a HUD so I can follow transit directions or something. I'm not trying to take creepshots.

What really frustrates me is that governments and big business have normalized surveillance everywhere, and now big business is basically selling wearable spyware, and this is all quite egregious.

But, one of the biggest ways to combat this is with "sousveillance", or the surveillance of oneself. This has proven to be quite effective for motorists who own dashcams, and could be useful other places as well. But AI-peddling billionaires have ruined the reputation of that kind of thing entirely to the point where even open source variants of this tech will be rejected by the public.

So businesses, the government, and the police have the right, and in many cases the obligation to record your every move in public, but you aren't allowed to record your own surroundings in return.

"There are a lot of times where it's not appropriate to wear cameras on your face". When is it ever appropriate? Try walking around pointing your cellphone at people's faces all the time and see what happens.

The amusing thing is put a gopro on your bike helmet, dashcam in your car? No problem. Camera on your face? Oh hells no.

I wonder if https://www.reflectacles.com/ will work against pervert glasses in addition to security cameras. Seems like a good time to find out.

Good.

Edit; I would add that people using these glasses should get ostracised. Point and laugh at them.

And still, I don’t get their use case unless it’s to be deliberately sneaky. Even their own ads are just “if you’re a pathetic idiot with no friends or ability to plan ahead even a little bit, these are the glasses for you!”

At a fancy restaurant by yourself and don’t know how the utensils work?

Need a hotel and just wanna blindly trust your glasses?

Can’t speak the local language at a resort full of anglophones and the attendant for some reason only speaks that language?

Or maybe you’re at a concert by yourself and really need to film something(you don’t, everyone else should be putting their fucking phones away, too).

Like LLMs, they’re a sad technology for sad, stupid people.

Creeps love an always-on camera that you can wear on your face so that it's not obvious that you're filming?

Who could've seen that coming

How do we feel about 'pedofocals'?

Shame is a greatly underrated emotion.

I’m never buying Ray Bans again. I don’t want to be associated, fuck Ray Bans for taking that cash.

I was thinking about buying some for recording my kids' events like schools graduations, performances, etc. I just hate watching everything through my phone instead of them and thought this would give the best of both worlds. As it stands now I do a lot less recording so I don't "miss" it.

Now I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't.

Next up: campaigns to normalize privacy violations IRL too, because that's separate from digital.

Also, please Flock and Ring too.