[HN Gopher] Ireland raises privacy question over Facebook smart ...
___________________________________________________________________
Ireland raises privacy question over Facebook smart glasses
Author : justinclift
Score : 127 points
Date : 2021-09-18 14:09 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| annadane wrote:
| It's just bad optics, no pun intended. They know the privacy
| concerns surrounding Facebook yet they choose to release smart
| glasses
| andylynch wrote:
| Surprising it's the DPC piping up. They aren't generally known as
| an aggressive regulator
| vmoore wrote:
| 1984 was a warning, not an instruction manual.
|
| It is good to bring up privacy issues with this.
|
| Essentially these glasses are a cheap version of what spies
| have been wearing for decades, so of course it's going to raise
| eyebrows. Putting surveillance powers in the hands of everyday
| folk invariably leads to bad things.
| croes wrote:
| Maybe just a proactive move. The DPC asks, FB answers, all is
| good, no privacy problems.
|
| And the indicator LED can easily be hidden with tape or these
| laptop camera stickers, if you are more into the ironic touch.
| lmkg wrote:
| The Irish regulator is the one with jurisdiction, so they're
| the one that's on point for this topic.
|
| They're also quite proactive in offering guidance, material,
| and feedback. Their cookie sweep from a few years back is
| something I still reference on a regular basis for the contours
| of "strictly necessary."
|
| They just don't actually _regulate_. They offer a lot of
| guidance and ask a lot of strong-worded questions, but those
| don 't turn into fines.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Malicious actors could just place them on a balcony near an ATM,
| this whole thing is a terrible idea as far privacy goes. Massive
| infraction.
| verdverm wrote:
| For those who worry about the camera and your privacy, how do
| phone cameras differ in this respect with everyone taking and
| uploading pictures, videos, snaps, and tiktoks in public spaces?
| 13415 wrote:
| There is no substantial difference, but the glasses hide it
| better and therefore have more nefarious uses. Making pictures
| of someone without consent is prohibited by law in most
| European countries, and people will react negatively if you try
| to do it.
|
| Glasses that looked almost identical to these Ray Bans used to
| be available from Chinese wholesale sellers. It has always been
| hard for me to imagine them getting used by anyone else than
| creeps for making pictures of women on the beach, etc. Just
| because they're Ray Ban doesn't suddenly make them noble, on
| the contrary the resolution is probably higher, which makes
| these even more problematic spyware.
| bussierem wrote:
| I have no skin in this game but the most common answer to this
| is that it's a lot easier to tell when someone is pointing a
| phone at you, unless they're REALLY being sneaky. With glasses
| this becomes impossible.
| cronix wrote:
| How many Amazon Ring doorbells do you walk/drive past every
| day without realizing it?
| verdverm wrote:
| I think for the most part, you end up in the background of a
| photo. How many selfies might you be in? Have you worried
| about that prior?
| theknocker wrote:
| The time to fight this battle is when it's criminals in the
| "intelligence community" violating our rights, not when it's
| private citizens with slightly goofier camera phones, i.e. a long
| time ago. (Though in fairness, I guess I do think every law
| enforcement official _should_ have a camera embedded in their
| forehead.)
| fidesomnes wrote:
| oh yes Ireland, the great bastion of privacy concern trolling.
| bennysomething wrote:
| I don't even understand how this got past the first whiteboard
| meeting "yeah right you want this to perv at the beach, park
| etc". It's just a creepy hidden camera.
| pronlover723 wrote:
| I know this will get DVed but this seems like one of those things
| we'll look back on in 20yrs and "mostly" wonder what all the fuss
| was about.
|
| AR cameras seem inevitable. They're strange today but ask any
| 2006 non-techie if they'd consider carrying a pocket computer and
| they'd laugh at you. Now they all have one and you'd likely only
| get them to part with it from their cold dead fingers.
|
| The privacy issues are a huge consequence but IMO they won't stop
| the march of progress. Too many positives. First is they enable
| AR which full sci-fi AR seems eminently useful. 2nd, they'll
| likely help prevent all kinds of crime, especially once implanted
| or put in contact lenses. Rape, Muggings, theft, seem like they'd
| all go down in a world where AR cameras are as ubiquitous as
| smartphones. How do backroom deals, government conspiracies,
| corporate malfeasance stay private when everyone in the room is
| recording it? You could say "they'll be told to turn it off to
| participate" but I suspect as we get more and more dependent it
| will become near impossible to ask people to turn off their
| connections. They won't be able to effectively participate in the
| meeting with all referencing all the stuff their AR display gives
| them access to. Police brutality? All of it recorded.
|
| Further, as a 2021 person used to privacy it scares the crap out
| of me for all my private activities with others to be recorded.
| But a generation of people that grew up with the AR will likely
| have no such reservations. They'll be used to having every sex
| act recorded.
|
| So, while the privacy issues are real I feel like it's mostly
| like commanding the waves to stop crashing. Impossible. Better to
| just accept that it's coming and figure out how best to deal with
| it. I don't believe laws telling people they can't have it or use
| it will work. I know if you value your privacy that sucks but I
| doubt anything can be done to stop it from coming and I so I
| think it's better to embrace its arrival.
| 123pie123 wrote:
| > Better to just accept that it's coming and figure out how
| best to deal with it.
|
| No - I massively disagree with this
|
| we're still at the forefront of the internet revolution , if we
| simply cave in on things like this, then all the subsquent
| generations will get the pain.
|
| We can stop it if we say no - it is 100% NOT inevitable, we can
| choose as a society
| novok wrote:
| Violence is always an option and ability for most humans, but
| we have laws and culture that prevent humans from doing those
| actions, and some places are better than others than this
| because of those legal and social differences. Similarly we can
| choose a similar future in regards to privacy, even with newly
| evolved tech with their privacy issues.
| mc32 wrote:
| There is one example of a technology which was curbed because
| it infringed on privacy: high iso + IR video cameras in
| daylight. Sony had come out with a "camcorder" whose functions
| allowed people who wanted to take surreptitious up skirt videos
| (it was good under low light conditions and added IR light).
| This was a big problem in Japan so Sony took it off the market.
|
| Now all cameras with IR suppress IR in good light conditions so
| as not to allow "see thru" capabilities.
| amelius wrote:
| That's nothing compared to the professional voyeurism
| performed by Google and Facebook.
| maccolgan wrote:
| Indeed the elimination of privacy seems inevitable...
| MrPatan wrote:
| The fuss is about the "Facebook" bit, not the "smart glasses"
| bit. I want smart glasses that are mine, not Mark's.
| [deleted]
| jsudi wrote:
| What is "L1N2QC2KU"?
| jobigoud wrote:
| Only place I can find it is in variants of this article. Maybe
| the author of the original pasted their password by mistake
| while they were working on it and the proofreader thought it
| was a code name or something.
| trebligdivad wrote:
| Can we just look back to all the stories about Google Glass a few
| years back and repeat them?
| rsynnott wrote:
| No repeat of the Robert Scoble photo, please!
| Animats wrote:
| At least with Google Glass, you had a display. These don't even
| have that. It's mostly a music player, really.
|
| Let's call them "fDweebs". ("iDweebs" were those Apple earbuds
| with white wires.)
| foobaby wrote:
| The problem with these is that they're essentially masquerading
| as normal sunglasses. I don't think most people in public will
| even notice that these aren't normal Ray Bans. Google Glass
| wasn't effective in part due to the fact that they were obvious
| to those around the wearer. That's not the case with these,
| which is frankly terrifying.
| dmoo wrote:
| Just to say, they will notice them in Ireland. There are not
| that many sunglasses days...
| rusk wrote:
| They hide a thousand sins it's said, so plenty more reasons
| to wear them round these parts
| ojbyrne wrote:
| They're also selling regular glasses, no tint.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| You'd be surprised how many people _didn 't_ notice them,
| tbh.
| rvense wrote:
| It's hard for me to articulate how this makes me feel. As
| someone who values anonymity and, for no particular reason,
| would prefer not to be photographed and have my movements
| tracked, I feel like I am being forced from public spaces.
|
| Regulated CCTV coverage of certain areas is one thing. This
| is untracked, unlimited surveillance by a private company
| whose goals and motives are completely removed from any
| semblance of public, democratic influence.
|
| Facebook must be destroyed.
| [deleted]
| drstewart wrote:
| >Regulated CCTV coverage of certain areas is one thing
|
| Why is it one thing? Also, who told you it was regulated?
| iamstupidsimple wrote:
| If it wasn't Facebook, somebody else would or already is
| doing this. There's no escaping public CCTV in major cities
| nowadays. It's not nearly as regulated as you think and is
| also majority run by private companies.
|
| If you don't like this, changing the laws to ban public
| surveillance is the only option.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Aggregation, scale, visibility, and mobility change the
| risks. Quantity has a quality of its own.
| hyperstar wrote:
| > changing the laws to ban public surveillance is the
| only option
|
| i wonder if it would be feasible to require that all
| surveillence footage from public areas be _immediately_
| encrypted so that it could only be decrypted by a certain
| number of judges (following a court order).
| colpabar wrote:
| Easy with the conspiracy theories. They may know your
| height, your eye/hair color, your skin color, your license
| plate #, where you live, where you work, where you shop,
| who you hang out with, etc, but you'll still be totally
| anonymous when they sell that information to whoever pays
| for it. They swear!
| sockpuppet_12 wrote:
| I know right? Only people who have something to hide
| would care if some bespectacled reprobate snaps down-
| shirt shots of them on the subway to share the
| 'experience' with their fellows.
| drclau wrote:
| > I don't think most people in public will even notice that
| these aren't normal Ray Bans
|
| Most people will not even be aware such devices exist. Here,
| on HN, there's an assumption that everyone is or will soon be
| up-to-date with tech news. But, the world outside of HN is
| way, way larger.
|
| I bet most people won't know what is going on even if they
| notice the eyeglasses have an LED that's on. It's not like an
| LED is a universal signal for "your privacy is cancelled
| now".
| a5aAqU wrote:
| People who are concerned about it will stop talking to people
| who wear Ray-Bans.
|
| I could see this having a negative effect on Ray-Ban,
| especially since it's easy to say "ban Ray-Bans" or "Ray-Bans
| are banned" when you're hosting a gathering or event.
|
| Customers are going to want to know, "Why do people around me
| always seem to look angry when I wear Ray-Bans? I get called
| 'glasshole' a few times every week."
| ajb wrote:
| David Brin predicted that surveillance would be impossible to
| control in his 1998 book "The Transparent Society", going on
| to argue that there are two possible futures: one in which
| the masses are under 100% surveillance, while elites can act
| behind closed doors, and one in which the masses can also see
| what the elites are doing ("sousveillance").
|
| I'm still hoping that there is a way out, but Brin is looking
| more and more prescient.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Looks like we'll need to become part of this elite in order
| to have any peace.
| rusk wrote:
| The glassholes have returned. This time incognito.
| 13415 wrote:
| At least they have "Ray Ban" written fairly large on the side,
| I'll certainly avoid people wearing Ray Bans in the near
| future.
| filoleg wrote:
| Given that Ray-Ban has been one of the most popular
| sunglasses and eyeglasses brands for a long time, following
| that principle might make it really difficult for you to go
| anywhere in public.
| 13415 wrote:
| Not that it matters, but they are not very popular where I
| live.
| Y_Y wrote:
| "spyctacles"
| siva7 wrote:
| So am i the only one where this would be social suicide wearing
| such things? Maybe someone can explain
| ramphastidae wrote:
| Agreed. If someone I was with was wearing these, the
| conversation would end immediately.
| C19is20 wrote:
| ...if you noticed them.
| copperx wrote:
| It is a good thing that these glasses are tinted, otherwise,
| people would wear them indoors, in private spaces.
| siva7 wrote:
| I am sorry to disappoint but they are available with clear
| glasses and therefore also with prescription glasses
| siva7 wrote:
| These glasses look ridiculous, i can't understand how a brand
| like ray-ban throws their name in for what looks like spy glasses
|
| https://www.ray-ban.com/usa/electronics/RW4004%20UNISEX%20RA...
| rootsudo wrote:
| litereally like ebay-chinese esque ones too.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/GoVision-Sunglasses-Resistant-Lightwe...
| neetfreek wrote:
| Just to comment on your take about the brand itself. Ray-Ban is
| owned by the Luxottica Group, who are set to merge with Essilor
| - looking at ~25% global value of eyewear.
|
| This means they own enough to possibly a) start normalising
| this whole thing by pushing out with other brands and b) Ray-
| Ban now bombing could be a credible calculated risk.
| dmoo wrote:
| For context https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/10/the-
| invisible-p...
| SomeBoolshit wrote:
| I'm a little confused by your comment. The glasses pictured in
| the article look like a pretty standard pair of modern
| Wayfarers.
| [deleted]
| shever73 wrote:
| This is exactly what I thought when I first saw them. The LED can
| be easily covered, and they look too much like normal sunglasses
| for the average person to notice.
|
| Day after day, my loathing for Facebook grows.
| noptd wrote:
| Yeah, this reminds me of a product you'd find in a spy museum.
|
| Cue the chilling effect of having to worry about being recorded
| whenever you're talking around someone wearing Raybans in
| public. And before the claims about it not being worse than
| everyone having a smartphone, etc, it absolutely is - it's far
| more obvious if someone has their phone in hand.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Unfortunately Facebook is far from the only company that
| regularly invades and has contempt for privacy.
|
| That contemptuous attitude and attempts to profit from privacy
| invasion is almost omnipresent among companies these days.
|
| On the subject of glasses that can record what you see, wasn't
| Google the first company to market them? There was a similar
| backlash against them too back then.
| agency wrote:
| At least with Google glass there was little danger of
| mistaking my them for "normal" glasses. These Facebook/Ray
| Ban ones are designed to blend in.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| It's not FB. It's progress. You can replace them with any other
| name in the world. It just happens to be that Facebook
| announced this rather obvious technology.
| eps wrote:
| You must've missed the first eposide of this show called
| "Glassholes".
| anderson1993 wrote:
| "Smart" is almost an exaggeration in this case. They don't have
| any AR, so it's just a camera basically, as far as I heard.
| croes wrote:
| Smartphone aren't smart either.
| drclau wrote:
| They were when they appeared. That is, in comparison to the
| phones that existed at that time, which are now known as
| "dumb phones". Now, smartphones are the normal.
| croes wrote:
| By that logic these smartglasses are smart
| aierou wrote:
| I don't mean to go too much against the narrative in this thread,
| but aren't cameras on glasses necessary to achieve AR? Are people
| concerned about these glasses just because it's Facebook, or is
| there broader opposition to AR technology?
| macrolime wrote:
| These glasses have no AR though, just a camera.
| aierou wrote:
| If these were AR glasses first, would we have accepted the
| cameras as a necessary evil? If that is the case, then the
| concern seems superficial.
| briandear wrote:
| For me, it's because Facebook. They have no track record of
| trust. I work for a significant Silicon Valley tech company and
| have seen up close the types of shenanigans that have been
| attempted by Facebook -- especially with their mobile apps.
| Don't trust them.
| e3bc54b2 wrote:
| > They have no track record of trust.
|
| Its worse. They have a consistent track record for asking for
| trust and then breaking it in most abusive way possible, then
| issuing a non-apology only after getting caught and then
| repeating same process all-over again. Oh, I forgot
| mentioning FB getting rich in the process, so it somehow
| becomes justified and has zero chance for change.
| aierou wrote:
| Aren't all recorded breaches of trust (outside of
| admittedly predatory data collection schemes endemic to the
| software industry) the result of unprecedented attacks on
| social networks as a construct? How would one anticipate
| such attacks?
|
| I think it's fair to say that Facebook grew too quickly to
| mitigate the issues inherent to social networks at scale. I
| _don 't_ think that makes them abusive or evil, just naive.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| There was that one time they conducted a study on emotion
| manipulation on 700,000 people without informed consent.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/30/facebo
| ok-...
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Remember the time they asked for your phone number for
| 2FA and then used it for contact linking?
| aierou wrote:
| From my position, the mobile app shenanigans look like little
| more than intracompany politics. Where Facebook is not
| getting data, Apple or Google are still happily collecting.
|
| Overall, I would guess that there is no track record of trust
| because expectations remain unclear. Concepts of privacy,
| data usage, and such _didn 't exist_ before Facebook and
| others. I suppose I am not eager to assume malintent outside
| what is standard for any business operating for the sake of
| profit.
| amelius wrote:
| We should take away the incentive for these companies to
| abuse our data.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" Concepts of privacy, data usage, and such didn't exist
| before Facebook and others."_
|
| They did exist before Facebook.
|
| But not before "others", which include every company and
| person who ever existed. Not sure why you added "and
| others" to that sentence.
| aierou wrote:
| Sorry, yes, that is poorly worded on my part. I meant to
| say that there is a class of privacy discussion that
| essentially did not exist prior to the widespread
| adoption of social media.
| jayd16 wrote:
| I think its pretty much just a complaint against Facebook. You
| could buy the first gen Snap Spectacles and its the same thing,
| no?
| fortran77 wrote:
| THat's my thought, too. Anyone who wants to hide a camera on
| their person can do so easily. A small hole in a shirt, coat,
| or hat can conceal a lens and cameras can be tiny. Yet
| nobody's rushing out to pass laws against "concealable
| cameras" in general.
| yati wrote:
| You also have to see how easy these will be to use, with a
| dedicated app and all, compared to hiding a camera. In
| practice, if I spot a hidden cam on someone interacting
| with me in public, I'd call them out, but socially it would
| e super awkward to ask someone to put their glasses away.
| But I agree the FB association might be making people extra
| uncomfortable (can't blame them!)
| billti wrote:
| For AR they will need some ability to interpret the world
| around them, but high res photography isn't the only way. Think
| Lidar and the like already used to get a spatial understanding,
| or the infrared dots used in some face/body recognition. I
| expect that companies that are more "privacy" focus will avoid
| a camera, or at least any ability for apps to directly access
| the images from them if they do have them.
| concordDance wrote:
| Why are people up in arms about this? Imagine a transhuman future
| where we all have superhuman memory and have integrated mind
| machine interfaces, able to perfectly transfer information
| between ourselves. Would you insist that people's memories be
| degraded to be close to the average memory quality? Or would you
| prevent them from transferring the information via things like
| degrading their perfect drawing skills? (Or maybe just make
| drawing people's faces from memory without their consent illegal?
| Presumably while also making it illegal to do things like sharing
| a high fidelity memory with a friend or spouse)
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I live in an all-party consent state, and would like to keep it
| that way. I don't want to be traced through other people's
| recordings, particularly through something that is easy to
| always have on.
| concordDance wrote:
| So what is your solution to the dilemma I pose? Forced memory
| degradation or prevention of memory transfer?
| pronlover723 wrote:
| I just reported to my friends that bobthepanda posted a
| message on hacker news. I didn't ask for your consent to tell
| them. I also told my sister about a conversation I had with a
| friend. I didn't ask the friend's permission to share.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| but that doesn't scale, and isn't super high fidelity
| anyways (eyewitness recall is notoriously bad).
|
| Just because something is possible, doesn't mean we should
| make more extreme versions of it possible.
| tiernano wrote:
| Cause it's Facebook... Any other company, sign me up... But
| fuck you Facebook....
| wortelefant wrote:
| great, so my RayBan wayfarer glasses will soon be regarded as
| suspicious
| noident wrote:
| This is why I've completely ruled out buying another pair of
| Ray-Bans again, and I've owned several in the past.
| kmlx wrote:
| what's the difference between these glasses and the snapchat
| spectacles?
|
| https://www.spectacles.com/
| siva7 wrote:
| The new Spectacles are not for sale. They're built for creators
| looking to push the limits of immersive AR experiences.
| kmlx wrote:
| the new spectacles aren't for sale. the old ones are.
|
| and the fb glasses look like spectacles v1.
|
| maybe i'm missing something, but it feels like fb just
| launched a product that was already out there for a while
| now.
| fsociety wrote:
| And what is the end goal of Spectacles? Surely to do more
| than just be exclusive for creators.
| guilhas wrote:
| You can already by hidden camera sun glasses on amazon
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-09-18 23:00 UTC)