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New privacy frontier: Europe eyes crackdown on smart glasses
- rimbo789 5mo agoGood. Finally. These never should have even been prototyped. Fool of an idea.
- lightedman 5mo agoTo you, sure. Meanwhile I have about 7 legitimate uses, almost all of them involving recording things down in mines while I need both hands free to keep myself from dying. You stay in your bubble if it makes you uncomfortable. Real people have real uses for this tech, whether you like it nor not.
- reaperducer 5mo agoalmost all of them involving recording things down in mines How are the glasses more beneficial than the far, far more durable helmet-mounted cameras that construction workers use, or the industrial-grade chest-mounted cameras used in many other industries? Also, how well do the glasses function underground? Are there pico cells down there to provide connectivity?
- lightedman 5mo ago"How are the glasses more beneficial than the far, far more durable helmet-mounted cameras" Helmets add lots of head space - not usable in very tight areas, especially the ones I'm in where you have to breathe out to get through a gap. "Also, how well do the glasses function underground? Are there pico cells down there to provide connectivity?" They work fine. Typical 4k action glasses actually have decent low-light performance (mine work great with the fluorescent reaction of rocks from a ~200mW output UVC lamp) and I just upload once I'm above-ground and have the memory card put into my laptop.
- adithyareddy 5mo agoYou can't use a GoPro or one of the many body cameras where it is clearly obvious to everyone who sees you that you: (a) Have a camera (b) Are recording?
- Legend2440 5mo agoI agree, I think people are being far too cynical. It's just like AI, people discount the positives and magnify the negatives.
- bubblegumcrisis 5mo ago<--- Who are these people. It's like they are from a different planet.
- netsharc 5mo agoWhat a silver lining... "oh this date rape drug works great as an animal tranquilizer and I need it at my farm! Don't ban it!"
- doubtfuluser 5mo agoI hope Europe does this for real. I’m wondering how this privacy nightmare is eroding our standards so easily. I certainly see the potential use of such - but the risks coming with such glasses at least in my opinion outweigh these uses.. Pleas, EU, ban this! Iirc there are already spy cams banned anyway in Germany, this should fall into the same category
- dgellow 5mo agoThe EU (i.e some EU politicians) is considering regulating them, not a full ban
- Claudus 5mo agoSmart glasses are for citizens, not subjects.
- vkou 5mo agoCitizens have responsibilities to their society, not just the right to be assholes.
- hootz 5mo agoI do photography as a hobby, especially street photography and related styles, and I constantly question myself on the ethics of photographing people in public without permission, even with my huge ass camera. Meanwhile, we have people running spy cameras in their glasses, and they view that as just a normal thing to do. What.
- Jblx2 5mo agoI wonder how many surveillance cameras are currently in operation.
- hootz 5mo agoWhile they are a problem, they are a different problem from spy cameras capturing you up close for the benefit of a single person. Surveillance cameras are for shady governments and maybe "security", camera glasses are for straight up creeps.
- m463 5mo agoThat has already been normalized. This is different. sigh.
- mc32 5mo agoWhen things were on NVRs only some personnel had access to them and they typically rotated fate out every 30 days by default. Importantly they were not interconnected. They were their own silos. Now they are all tied in to central services and people with the right access can pull up anything from any of the devices regardless how irrelevant they are to an investigation. The main problem is the interconnectedness. They are realizing Hayden’s wet dream of total surveillance.
- drdaeman 5mo agoGlasses’ camera [usually] sits right next to couple more cameras embedded in wearer’s skull. [Almost] nobody has any problem with those. That strongly suggests me it’s not the cameras that are problematic, but something about what happens to the images.
- thatmf 5mo agoThe one thing I appreciate about smart glasses is that it broadcasts the wearer's terrible personality loud and clear and I can thus avoid them.
- ChrisArchitect 5mo agoRelated: Banray.eu https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47650022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47650022
- everdrive 5mo agoThere's a mad dash right now. Everyone is sprinting as fast as possible to invent and propagate the worst technology possible. Oh, you thought smart phones ruined society? Well good news, smart glasses are finally viable. You just won't believe what they'll come up with next, and everyone will buy it, and everyone will be worse off.
- NBJack 5mo agoSci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus Meta: We created the portable Occular Torment Nexus. We believe you should always be present in the Nexus, even with others around you. And thanks to our partnership with Popular Glasses Company, you can be tormented in style!
- whiplash451 5mo agoWhy are we even allowing this in Europe? These smart glasses are just plain data collection and surveillance in plain sight. When does the nightmare stop?
- haxiomic 5mo ago> The internal memo from Meta’s Reality Labs notes that the current situation in the U.S was good timing for the feature’s release. > “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,” says the document. https://www.biometricupdate.com/202602/meta-plans-launch-of-facial-recognition-to-smart-glasses-in-dynamic-political-environment https://www.biometricupdate.com/202602/meta-plans-launch-of-...
- dgellow 5mo agoThat's so fucking cynical. I cannot imagine how bad the internal culture has to be for such a thing to be said so openly
- WesolyKubeczek 5mo agoI’m actually glad they say the quiet part out loud. Leaves no room for doubt about their nature.
- snthd 5mo agohttps://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuckerberg: Just ask Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuckerberg: People just submitted it. Zuckerberg: I don't know why. Zuckerberg: They "trust me" Zuckerberg: Dumb fucks Instant messages sent by Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days, reported by Business Insider (May 13, 2010)
- nicce 5mo agoIt is so sad. Money always wins.
- bigfatkitten 5mo agoI want to see the original memo just so I can put a name and a face to the utter ghoul responsible.
- red_admiral 5mo agoThe EU's tech laws have some good parts and some bad parts. If this goes through, I personally will consider it a very good part.
- dgellow 5mo agoAssuming they are recording strangers speaking in public, that's illegal in Germany without explicit consent: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p1939 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st... Even without sharing the recording.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- Legend2440 5mo agoThis is the laziest possible implementation of smart glasses. What I want is an overlay that gives you useful information about the world. Like you're looking at a store shelf and it tells you if the price is low or high compared to other stores in the area. Or you're fixing your car and it shows the steps you need to execute. A camera recording is neither smart nor useful IMO.
- stymaar 5mo ago> A camera recording is neither smart nor useful IMO. It's very useful for big brother Zuckerberg though.
- mncharity 5mo agoI've long since given up on seeing thoughtful policy space discussion, here or anywhere, but I see drdaeman's 'I need assistance in recognizing faces' being downvoted here today, so briefly... Europe and the US have had different legal perspectives on public photography, and each has had both costs and benefits. Perhaps those contrasts could help inform discussion. As with any tech in its infancy, thought experiments might illuminate options. I suspect few here would object to a camera feeding only a chip which outputs only hand pose for gestural UI. What if that chip output a facial UID, for help with 'hey, that's someone I know', and that UID was transient and never left the glasses? What if that UID was sent to Meta for arbitrary monitization? If the last two drew different answers, then perhaps the downvoted suggestion to regulate the use, not the camera, might deserve discussion. Notable elephants in the room include: Trust - with societal lying normalized, and misrepresentation pervasive in policy discourse, it's not unreasonable to suggest that we're societally incapable of regulating use, so broad prohibitions are the only policy tool available. Imperial conservative stagnation - as with drone's "yes it could be an economically transformative technology, and a militarily critical industry, but at every stage of its exploration, it must be perfectly safe(tm)!" (the emph bit heard here on HN) - turning your back on modernization and reform has consequences when you have rival states. Privilege - having done dementia caregiving, there are lots of people whose lives would be profoundly improved by having ride-along see-what-they-see AI companions - "Did I have dinner? Yes, 10 minutes ago. You had X. Maybe you'd like a snack of Y to get more protein?" - even a valid claim of "this tech would hurt me" deserves a pause for "but how might it help others?". I wish we had some social tech to facilitate doing better at this kind of discussion.
- em-bee 5mo agoWhat if that chip output a facial UID, for help with 'hey, that's someone I know' what if i don't want to be recognized by you? or by anyone else? the problem is not that it allows some people to recognize me. the problem is that it allows everyone to identify everyone else at scale. if this tool can help someone because they have a medical condition then we can make these devices specifically available for them. that's just like allowing support animals in places where animals are not usually allowed to be.
- louwrentius 5mo agoSmart Glasses are for creepy men who want to make pictures of women without their consent in secret. I hope these glasses will be banned. Lawmaker Cifrová Ostrihoňová said that, from a gender-based violence perspective, it is "simply unacceptable for any woman to worry about being filmed in public secretly and then worry about those images being shared online.” 100% this
- drstewart 5mo ago[flagged]
- FpUser 5mo agoOn the other hand if I am interacting with the government persons I very much like it to be automatically recorded just in case. fuck never mind government, when I deal with the companies / services I may want to record the whole thing as well
- petethepig 5mo agoI got sent to immigration secondary while crossing the border in Amsterdam earlier this week because they were worried I was taking videos of their “military object” with my meta glasses. They told me to take them off while i’m at the airport. This is so silly — they only record when you press a button, not continuously, and they can only record for like 3 mins max and there’s a light that indicates to everyone around you when they are recording. Meanwhile there’s a bunch of people in line with their phones out, which do not indicate when the camera is on. But somehow that’s different. It’s a bummer because they’re great for taking family photos/videos. Also great as an Airpods replacement. A little flimsy but the tech is 90% there. I wish Apple made them instead of Meta — I think they’d do a better job of bringing them to the market while maintaining public trust.
- spwa4 5mo agoIs anyone else curious why the authors of ChatControl have so much interest in "protecting your privacy" ? Supposedly it's to "protect the children" but ANY EU country is implementing harsh savings on children. On medical care for children, on child-care, on education, on child services, you name it. None of them are being funded adequately.