[HN Gopher] Philly courts will ban all smart eyeglasses starting...
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Philly courts will ban all smart eyeglasses starting next week
Author : Philadelphia
Score : 385 points
Date : 2026-03-30 01:38 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.inquirer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.inquirer.com)
| Octoth0rpe wrote:
| Cool. Now do all government offices / properties of any kind
| please (and also go national with the policy).
|
| Absolutely fuck these things and anyone who advocates for them.
| No exceptions.
|
| > reasonably affordable and available smart glasses have finally
| begun catching on within the last year.
|
| Also, no they haven't.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| All public transit and workplaces next.
| martythemaniak wrote:
| There's hardly a worse advertisement for those than Zuckerberg
| wearing them. The idea was always that Google glass failed
| because it made you look like a dork because the glasses looked
| weird, so if the glasses looked normal they'd sell. But now you
| have a creep with a camera always pointed at you, so it'll go the
| same way.
| serious_angel wrote:
| I am not into Facebook/Meta nowadays, bet the technology is so
| lovely freaking magnificent... Back in the days, these were in
| Sci-Fi and dreams only...
|
| // https://www.ifixit.com/News/113543/theres-groundbreaking-
| wav...
| verandaguy wrote:
| It can be simultaneously true that smart glasses are a
| technological marvel and a privacy nightmare.
|
| It's also important to consider that while many places have
| some legal framework along the lines of "no reasonable
| expectation of privacy in public spaces," there's a social-
| psychological gap between that and the presumption of being
| constantly recorded, be it by other private individuals or
| governments.
|
| Because of this, my view on this technology is that it's a net
| negative in society, and generally unhealthy.
| discordance wrote:
| I also feel for the unfortunate Kenyan annotators drawing and
| tagging rectangles of people using the toilet -
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/workers-report-
| watch...
| theshrike79 wrote:
| As a full-time glasses-wearer and sci-fi nerd, I want smart
| glasses SO BAD. Just running the equivalent of YOLOv8 on your
| glasses identifying objects in your view real time would be
| very very cool.
|
| But as a privacy-conscious developer, I want exactly zero
| connection to any FAANG cloud service in my smart classes.
|
| So until someone releases a pair of smart glasses I can get
| with my prescription and, for example, use my phone for
| "local" compute with no forced cloud access, I'm going to
| skip the whole category.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| It's worse than this. A company offering "private" smart
| glasses could slip into FB mode on its own or get acquired.
| So it's a hard no from _any company_ really.
| stavros wrote:
| A company offering private smart glasses would have to
| offer them with an unlocked bootloader.
| Terr_ wrote:
| IMO much of the "no reasonable expectation" stuff is simply
| wrong, or treats things as an unreasonable binary.
|
| For example, there's no reasonable expectation that singing
| to myself in public won't be recorded.
|
| But almost everyone in public _does_ reasonably-assume that
| their every step isn 't being permanently logged by a
| stalking drone swarm.
| verandaguy wrote:
| Right, that's actually a fair framing. I get to enjoy a
| walking commute in my city, and or the most part, I feel
| very anonymous on my walk into the office.
|
| Blending into rush hour foot traffic is easy, and I never
| feel like I stand out enough to attract attention... though
| in the back of my head, I know that most commercial and
| government properties have some form of video surveillance,
| probably backed by some kind of (hopefully coarse) AI
| subject tagging.
| j-bos wrote:
| That genie's out of the bottle, couple cheap cameras with
| cheap AI recognition and tracking, and every network
| getting pwned by somebody the result is, public spaces
| become obscenely public. The worst is private spaces, like
| when a technician or tradesman comes to one's house to do
| work wearing smart glasses. If they're Rx, what do you do?
| Refuse service? live with the broken pipe/modem?
|
| No opinion on the decision from OP's post, just noting
| that, privacy is getting 86'd six ways to Sunday. All
| that's left are truly owned homes and natural spaces, and
| Orwell laid the pattern for both.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > That genie's out of the bottle [...] public spaces
| become obscenely public
|
| A bit "meta" here, but this was never about surrendering
| to advancing _capability_ , humans have been capable of
| eavesdropping ever since eaves were invented, people
| could bring hidden microphones and cameras in "private"
| spaces for decades, etc.
|
| The "reasonable expectation" doesn't come from our fears
| of the worst, or else it would be meaninglessly
| permissive. Rather, it's an attempt to judge individual
| situations based on some kind of _collective agreement_
| about normality. Just because we can 't preemptively
| block something doesn't mean it cannot be a crime.
|
| In other words, we (should) have a lot more power to
| decide what they become than that. Supposing--and I'm not
| endorsing this--anyone caught recording in public
| typically gets their stuff smashed by an angry mob, then
| the "reasonable expectation" is that you're not being
| recorded.
| j-bos wrote:
| Thanks for the nuance. I guess my issue is that pervasive
| recording has already been normalized, db hacks are
| effectively normalized (if illegal) so the public spaces
| are super public, as of yesterday not tomorrow.
| wpm wrote:
| They were better off being left in dreams, because there you
| never have to actually think of the consequences.
|
| Like Star Trek holodecks. They seem amazing at first, but only
| because the weirdest it ever got was a sweaty Lt. Barclay, a
| creepy Cmdr. LaForge, and a safe-for-TV sleazeball named Quark.
|
| In reality, if you could "jack in" to a self-controlled Matrix,
| or walk onto a holodeck and make anything you wanted feel real,
| it would be 24/7, 100% the unhealthiest invention since the
| nuclear weapon.
| expedition32 wrote:
| One thing people don't get right about Star Trek is that the
| Federation is not supposed to be "us but with a post scarcity
| economy".
|
| The entire society in Star Trek has moved beyond greed and
| sadism.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Also Starfleet is the hypercompetent overachieving side of
| the Federation, and the show itself is aspirational to the
| core of its DNA, so this kind of biases the sample. It's
| not supposed to be us today, but rather what we could
| plausibly become as people (even subtracting the post-
| scarcity / scifi bits).
| bryan0 wrote:
| Serious question: what will happen when people start getting
| implants? They'll probably require some sort of off mode, but not
| sure how that would be enforced.
| steanne wrote:
| sounds like an expensive way to get disqualified from jury
| duty.
| inetknght wrote:
| The easiest way to get out of jury duty is to ask about jury
| nullification during voir dire.
|
| But the bigger thing is: why would you want to get
| disqualified from one of your biggest civic duties?
| limagnolia wrote:
| Or you could just write to the court and ask to be excused,
| so you don't even have to show up. Most judges will excuse
| you for any reason if you ask.
| pseingatl wrote:
| In Miami, writing "No English" on the summons does the
| trick. Or, tell them that you do not consent to be
| searched (courthouse searches are deemed to be "consent"
| searches) so please have someone escort you inside
| without being searched. A quick note saying, "only God
| can judge" gets you off the hook. They'll hustle you
| right out of there if you mention jury nullification.
| Announcing that "the defendant must be guilty because the
| police arrested him," or "plaintiff lawyers exaggerate
| injuries to get more money" usually work. "I'm prejudiced
| against [fill in the blank] people" works too. If this
| doesn't work immediately, serve up a stereotype in
| response to the judge's question. "Everyone knows that
| most crimes are committed by black people" will earn you
| an a quick excusal. I could go on. "I can't pay attention
| because I'm worried about..." "Maybe this case is
| important to these people but I've got my own problems
| and I can't concentrate on their while I'm worried about
| my own."
| mystraline wrote:
| "Your honor, it is my ethical framework that I first must
| determine if the law should even be the law, and secondly
| if the defendant did it if the law is worthy. I will find
| the defendant not guilty even if they claim in open court
| they did it, but the law is bad."
|
| (Basis and justification of jury nullification.)
|
| Edit: Seriously, -1's? Given how many bad laws there are,
| judging the law first, then the defendant should be a
| given.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| You're getting downvotes because openly stating it like
| this is gonna get you contempt of court.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Imagine if everyone did this. Then when you're in court
| for a crime you didn't commit the only people on the jury
| would be those too stupid to have failed to be dismissed
| from jury duty.
| wan23 wrote:
| The last time I was on jury duty in New York, any time
| someone tried any of these, the judge just reassigned the
| person to the jury pool for civil cases which, he
| claimed, are usually longer trials and likely to be more
| of an inconvenience.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Not on my last summons! I had to go to a side room with
| the judge and show him that I already had personal, not
| work-sponsored, travel during the scheduled dates. He was
| clear with our instructions that work travel was not an
| excuse; that was the employer's problem, not the
| employee's. I showed him my airfare receipts and he
| thanked me for coming, and sent me home. I was one of
| like 5 people who got to leave.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| We had a 2 or 3 month old and my wife didn't get
| dismissed due needing to breastfeed the baby every couple
| hours. They gave her a room to feed in, so I also had to
| take time off to take the baby to her.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm a bit surprised that they didn't just let you
| reschedule. As I recall when I got a grand jury summons I
| kicked the can down the road as far as I could and then
| avoided being empaneled.
| kstrauser wrote:
| It was some big federal case that was scheduled for like
| 3 weeks. There were 60 or so of us in that batch of juror
| candidates, and they weren't letting _anyone_ go without
| a short list of excuses. That was a first for me, too.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >But the bigger thing is: why would you want to get
| disqualified from one of your biggest civic duties?
|
| Because jury duty does not pay enough to put a roof over
| one's head and food on the table?
| mystraline wrote:
| Supposedly, for what amounts to an "extremely important
| civic duty", pays to what amounts illegal under-minimum
| wage for compelled work. Its usually $60/day which is
| barely $7.50/hr. Then you have to pay for parking and
| overly expensive food downtown.
|
| And the only reason people even care about being on a
| jury is because we are threatened with state violence if
| we dont. Its not like they have to pay people fairly -
| they just threaten you with contempt of court and jail.
|
| Money wouldn't solve everything, sure. But being paid
| $50/hr would greatly alleviate many problems.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| That's only relevant if you would lose out on your income
| from work, which most people won't as they are paid
| salary. So yes, for people paid hourly it's legitimate to
| want out of jury duty, but that's also not the typical
| situation. Most people just don't feel like doing it.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| >But the bigger thing is: why would you want to get
| disqualified from one of your biggest civic duties?
|
| because jury duty pays like 2 dollars an hour and I gotta
| eat. I know lots of folks on this website are relatively
| well off, but the entire country doesn't make 6 figures
| ghaff wrote:
| Meanwhile you're probably paying for parking, gas, etc.
|
| Also grand jury duty can be something like six months
| (may not be every day depending on jurisdiction. Federal
| may be even longer. Probably no company will keep paying
| you for that length of time even if you squeeze in some
| work nights and weekends.
| Suzuran wrote:
| The company doesn't get the choice. If they fire you or
| cut your pay over jury service, or even just threaten to
| to do so, and you can prove it, they can be arrested
| immediately. I have personally witnessed a judge issue a
| bench warrant for the arrest of a retail manager who told
| an employee that if she failed to get out of jury duty
| before her shift started that she would be fired. When
| the manager was brought in and questioned by the judge he
| tried to argue that it was his right to deny jury service
| by his employees. He was given 90 days in jail for
| contempt of court.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't know. Maybe I could worked with HR for more but
| our employee manual said they would pay for two weeks and
| this was a company that was generally pretty
| understanding about personal matters. Certainly an hourly
| employee or someone self employed is probably not getting
| any sort of a deal.
|
| I wouldn't have been fired (which seems a different case)
| but being largely unable to, say, make sales calls or
| other external activities for 6 months I would expect to
| have consequences even if just as simple as underforming
| my peers. Maybe a manager would understand and take it
| into account but I wouldn't count on it. It doesn't have
| to be blatant as in your example.
| hansvm wrote:
| If you perform nearly any work at all in a given week
| you're entitled to your salary, and they can't fire you.
| They might be able to take away the $15/day stipend from
| your pay, and there are obvious additional negatives (6
| months with limited context and practice of your craft
| will reduce your performance when you get back too), but
| that 2-week cap is a lawsuit waiting to happen unless
| they also forbid you from doing any work while on jury
| duty.
| ghaff wrote:
| As I say grand jury duty is often not every day, you can
| always take your PTO, and there are always nights and
| weekends. A company can always keep paying your base
| salary but, as you say, there could be longer term
| consequences.
|
| And the case upthread is obviously a retail manager being
| stupid but I also assume there is no obligation to pay
| hourly employees for hours they don't work or for tips
| they didn't collect.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| That's the only legitimate reason to not want jury duty,
| but you also just need to explain to the judge that you
| get paid by the hour for work and can't afford to not be
| paid for several days. The judge will let you go.
|
| That's also not the typical reason people want out of
| jury duty. Most people are just lazy, not actually at
| risk of economic hardship from it.
| paxys wrote:
| It's already impossible to stop someone from recording if they
| are really determined. Pen cameras, button cameras and all
| sorts of miniature devices exist and can be snuck through very
| easily. You enforce the restriction by prosecuting people who
| upload the footage.
| Suzuran wrote:
| The problem is punishing the uploader doesn't remove the
| upload. Once the public has it, it has it forever. It doesn't
| un-contaminate a jury pool, and there's no later retraction
| if whatever that was uploaded is found to be lacking context,
| false, or outright fabricated. Once that kind of damage is
| done, it can't be un-done.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Yeah, that's unfortunate. But the same is true of lots of
| other crimes. No way to unstab someone. Usually we account
| for that by setting a higher punishment
| megabless123 wrote:
| > You enforce the restriction by prosecuting people who
| upload the footage.
|
| but this is impossible to guarantee as well
| alwa wrote:
| It sure changes the incentives though. It's much less
| attractive to leak recordings as a PR move--or realize any
| benefit that cranky humorless judges can trace back to the
| recording--if that, in and of itself, constitutes a whole
| new crime (and effectively confessing to it too).
| jjk166 wrote:
| It's turtles all the way down. If we had a way to perfectly
| prevent people from doing undesirable things, we wouldn't
| need courthouses to begin with. The system doesn't need to
| be perfect, it just needs to be good enough that reliably
| circumventing it isn't worth the effort.
| keernan wrote:
| >It's already impossible to stop someone from recording if
| they are really determined.
|
| I'm no expert, but I believe national security SCIFs use
| technology that blocks recording.
| root_axis wrote:
| That's so far into the future that we can cross that bridge
| when we come to it.
| emptybits wrote:
| On the audio side, it's not a stretch to imagine cochlear
| implants (or hearing aids) having an undetectable recording
| ability.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| AFAIK some wireless buds can work as better hearing aids,
| they just don't have the medical device label to officially
| perform that function.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Some even have that label: https://support.apple.com/en-
| us/120992
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| > so far into the future
|
| Idk, I think this is like, maybe 5 years in the future
| theshrike79 wrote:
| You really need to look into what people are doing with
| prosthetic eyes.
|
| Here's a dude from 3 years ago adding a flashlight: https://w
| ww.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/yblzi4/g...
|
| And I'm pretty sure I saw one who added a laser to theirs for
| raves, but can't find the link :)
|
| You can buy very very tiny cameras today off the shelf, the
| main problem would be just packaging either a storage medium
| or wireless transfer capability + power inside the eye. With
| government-level budgets it's doable, possibly even by a
| skilled maker with resources.
| lstodd wrote:
| AirPods knockoffs are mass-produced. They contain power and
| RF comms in a package that's significantly smaller than an
| eye. The only problem with prosthetic eye camera I as a
| half-skilled home-lab owner would have is how to not ruin
| the source prostetic. Which is trivial - just buy a dozen
| and practice.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It's so far into the future that it overflows the temporal
| coordinates and is actually a few years into the past now.
| Dban1 wrote:
| EMP wave.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| For ex. in a lot factorys, is is forbidden to make pictures
| (and movies). So maybe you just don't have access to such
| areas. In Switzerland pen cameras etc. are just forbidden.
| ghaff wrote:
| In fact, pre smartphones more or less, bringing cameras into
| even an office workplace was generally pretty controlled.
| Still is under some circumstances.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I banned them from our office and while using work-issued
| computers. There's no circumstance here in which someone
| should be working with a personal camera aimed at their
| screen.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| Recently someone showd me a cellphone picture from
| something he saw in our company. He was not brave enought
| to make a screenshot (with the companys computer), so he
| made just a photo with his cellphone from the screen. So,
| this is a thing.
| hau wrote:
| On-board NN moderates all interactions. Moral NN core must be
| updated montlhy to support latest moral and legal checks by NN.
| This core reports when you are doing something suspicious.
| State, municipal, border and patrol random checks for proper
| attestation of implants. Of course manufacture and installation
| of such implants is licensed and tightly regulated. Think of
| children.
|
| It's not very different from smartphone. But now instead of
| modem you have nn "firmware" with broad capabilities to warn
| privacy and ethics police when you are out of line. Recording
| in the wrong place, or looking at a crime and not reporting.
| "Off mode" won't fly for a gun, and your implant threatens
| children, so I don't believe this could be delegated to the
| user.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _On-board NN moderates all interactions. Moral NN core must
| be updated montlhy to support latest moral and legal checks
| by NN. This core reports when you are doing something
| suspicious._
|
| This module is formally called "conscience" and fortunately,
| at this time, is securely sandboxed to not directly
| communicate with any device or service outside of the body.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| Look how that worked out for whatever's your favorite mass
| genocide in history.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I don't think networking it with powers-that-be will
| help, though.
| guzfip wrote:
| Thankfully Silicon Valley discovered you can be so much
| more productive by removing the conscience as well as the
| soul.
| hau wrote:
| This is dangerous terrorist version you are talking about.
| People can not be trusted with choosing their own
| conscience, that's how you get terrorists and pedophiles.
| Remotely attested module is trusted by democratic
| authority, not using it is basically admiting intention to
| hurt fellow citizens.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Drop the democratic, and you just invented crypto-church.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| what will happen is people will get away with it, unfettered,
| until someday someone ends up in a courtroom for it. they'll be
| punished, then if it happens frequently enough more people will
| chime in on wanting a way to inhibit it, maybe people would
| start wearing those anti-paparazzi-clothes that somehow ruin
| the footage
| veunes wrote:
| You can ask someone to take off glasses or power down a phone,
| but you can't really "check" an implant in the same way
| qha34h wrote:
| I don't see how these glasses are legal at all. While filming in
| public places is allowed in the US, commercial use of that
| material is not. For example, you cannot just use public material
| with recognizable people in advertisements without their consent.
|
| Meta is likely to use material from these spy devices to build
| real world networks and use it commercially.
|
| These "glasses" should be outlawed. The only useful purpose is to
| immediately identify the wearer as an asshole.
| dataflow wrote:
| Are all commercial uses illegal or only those that display your
| likeness?
| shagie wrote:
| A news broadcast for a commercially run news network does not
| need releases nor does it need to compensate people who walk
| through the background.
|
| Likewise, journalistic photographs (for commercial use) are
| legal and don't require releases or compensation for people
| who are part of the scene.
|
| https://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf (note the
| credentials in the lower right corner - and if you want to
| know more I'd suggest https://www.krages.com/bpkphoto.htm )
| The general rule in the United States is that anyone may take
| photographs of whatever they want when they are in a public
| place or places where they have permission to take
| photographs. Absent a specific legal prohibition such as a
| statute or ordinance, you are legally entitled to take
| photographs. Examples of places that are traditionally
| considered public are streets, sidewalks, and public parks.
| sebmellen wrote:
| Is it really true that commercial use of film taken from public
| places is not allowed without consent? Is there a case law or a
| specific statute on this? Would love to read more.
| recursivecaveat wrote:
| Are far as I can tell: people in the footage can collect
| damages as long as they're identifiable. Meaning that you
| could easily tell afterwards that the complainant is the one
| in the footage used. So a shot of a sports crowd is probably
| okay, though I imagine they have people sign off on some kind
| of T&C that covers that anyway. On the other hand walking-
| down-the-street footage you would need releases from those
| people.
| repiret wrote:
| Assuming you mean in the United Stares, can you cite a
| specific law or court case to support your position?
|
| It occurs to me that the existence of paparazzi seems to be
| evidence against your position.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Paparazzi get sued for crossing lines all the time. Good
| ones know exactly how far they can push the boundary and
| are careful to stay close to it
| recursivecaveat wrote:
| Not federal, but this:
| https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/civil-code/civ-sect-3344/ To
| be clear by 'commercial purposes', it's
| advertising/promotion/marketing. Paparazzi photos would
| be alright by that bar. I presume the idea is to avoid
| any implied endorsement by those photographed.
| mminer237 wrote:
| It's called the right of publicity. Basically the idea
| that you're entitled to compensation to for commercial
| use of your likeness. AFAIK, you always have to be
| recognizable to sue over it as you have to see your
| likeness, and damages would be pretty minor if you're not
| famous or an actor anyway. It depends on the state but
| generally it does have to be in advertising.
| hackingonempty wrote:
| True, in California, for advertising or sales purposes.
| Probably other states too. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov
| /faces/codes_displaySectio....
| amelius wrote:
| What if people are recognizable but more in the background?
| Isn't that fair use?
| paxys wrote:
| So should smartphone cameras be illegal as well? Or cameras of
| every kind?
| neya wrote:
| Depends, would you walk around recording everyone with your
| phone out right onto their faces without their consent?
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| If you're a TikToker, absolutely
| probably_wrong wrote:
| I'm surprised it took this long but two weeks ago I saw
| my first live streamer at a flea market. He was wearing
| some type of camera on his head (can't tell which one)
| and had his phone mounted like a wristwatch to read chat
| notifications. It was like that old Penny Arcade's strip
| about Glassholes come to life [1].
|
| He was definitely filming everyone without our consent.
|
| [1] https://www.penny-
| arcade.com/comic/2013/06/14/glasshol
| kstrauser wrote:
| "Hey security, I think that guy was filming young girls.
| Please eject him."
| probably_wrong wrote:
| The link is missing an e: https://www.penny-
| arcade.com/comic/2013/06/14/glasshole
| neya wrote:
| TikTokers aren't exactly the gold standards of society
| nor is being a TikToker a free card to violate people's
| privacy though. What's to say if someone confronts and
| requests the TikToker to stop recording them without
| their permission?
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| They just... don't stop. What're you gonna do, take away
| the camera, hit them? Then they have great content and
| can sue you for assault. There's millions of people out
| there that are filming without consent every single day,
| for content.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Public photography is not a crime.
|
| * a negative is: the opportunities to enjoy oneself have
| sadly diminished...do one 'strange' thing in public, and
| you're on the web.
| neya wrote:
| Public photography isn't a crime, but then again it's
| very nuanced. If I'm taking a portrait of a park, where
| people are having picnics, it seems "less targeted", if
| you know what I mean. Whereas walking with a phone or
| camera in your hand pointing directly at people's faces
| feels not really right.
|
| The best way to do this would be how Google solved this
| with street view. Capture your public photos, blur out
| people's faces - better yet, respect their privacy if
| someone requests to not film them. Eg. Google Street view
| will blur out complete homes if you decide to opt out.
| mr_toad wrote:
| It's practically impossible to take pictures of a famous
| monument without having other people in the frame
| (usually they're posing for photos themselves). AI can
| remove them, with varying degrees of success.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Ironically, it would probably be easier for the AI to
| generate the photo of the monument without the people. I
| mean, for famous monuments, whatever photo you're about
| to take, you could find 10 better ones already on-line,
| taken from the same point and perspective, and uploaded
| to Flickr or Instagram or wherenot.
| acheron wrote:
| Weren't Samsung phones doing something like this? If you
| tried to take a picture with the moon in it, it would
| just generate an image of the moon?
| paxys wrote:
| So smartphone cameras should be banned nationwide depending
| on whether I personally record people without their consent
| or not?
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| > I don't see how these glasses are legal at all. While filming
| in public places is allowed in the US, commercial use of that
| material is not
|
| As a general statement about the law this is not correct. And
| that's even before we get to the next paragraph where you just
| wildly speculate and use that as buttressing the already false
| premise.
| dankwizard wrote:
| It's why I use the classic camera-in-the-pen-in-the-shirt-pocket.
| Dban1 wrote:
| 4k 144fps?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Phones exist, tho.
| plorg wrote:
| My local county is currently in a dispute with the local bar
| association because they want to upgrade the courthouse security
| cameras and the sheriff wants to add audio capabilities. This
| includes to parts of the building just outside the courtroom that
| counsel will frequently use for brief asides with their clients
| (due to lack of other private rooms). The county seems to favor
| adding the microphones and pinky swearing they won't use them and
| that public records requests won't be used to listen in on
| privileged communication, but it's obvious how difficult that
| would be to trust. They keep putting off a decision because they
| don't want to piss off the lawyers.
| pilingual wrote:
| https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-francisco-judg...
|
| There's no leadership to curtail asinine behavior. Instead of
| forces of nature to strengthen the status quo of freedom, we
| get lowly politicians. Judges end up having to do all the work.
| theturtletalks wrote:
| Even if what they hear is inadmissible in court, parallel
| construction is a real thing and they will find a way to work
| backwards.
| shevy-java wrote:
| It is basically an unfair advantage, even if inadmissible in
| court. The state can find more facts even in illegal ways;
| and this assuming the government is fair rather than
| criminal. I have a hard time trusting governments who
| mistrust the public.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Are you in Iowa, by chance? A neighboring county where I live
| wants to do this exact thing. Last I read they had voted to go
| forward with it.
| danpalmer wrote:
| I assume the sheriff would be totally fine with putting up
| signs in that area saying "audio and video recording in
| progress" then right? That would somewhat address the issue,
| and should be entirely uncontroversial to both sides.
| linkregister wrote:
| There is an asymmetric impact to the defense. In our
| adversarial legal system, we must not disadvantage one of the
| sides unilaterally.
| WillAdams wrote:
| There are times when I want to argue that the solution is
| to make the question one of truth rather than guilt or
| innocence, but any solution runs up against human nature,
| my first experience of which was when playing sports and
| being told by my team mates that I should state that the
| ball fell on the side of the line which was advantageous to
| the team, rather than where it actually fell.
|
| Never willingly played a team sport again.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| That doesn't sound like a good compromise at all. First
| practically speaking, you can't just leave the court building
| to discuss with your client if they're in chains, and it's
| super inconvenient based on the layout of many courts.
| Second, this becomes the excuse for adding audio and video
| surveillance _everywhere_ , with the excuse that you know
| about it, so it's okay. Third, considering audio can pick up
| things like jokes, irrational things said in anger, or just
| one's mumblings to oneself, it very quickly becomes the
| excuse to haul in anyone you don't like by misconstruing
| their words. The fact that it was brought by law enforcement
| tells you they are looking to use it against people.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most
| honest of men, I will find something in them which will
| hang him.
|
| -- Structured to Cardinal Richelieu
| Terr_ wrote:
| * s/Structured/Attributed/ , not sure how that swipe-typo
| happened.
| plorg wrote:
| The whole point of contention is that one of the spaces is,
| effectively, the only convenient places to have a quick,
| heretofore private, conversation. No one is confused over
| where the things are.
| wood_spirit wrote:
| There should be rooms assigned for these private
| conversations.
|
| But I imagine even these rooms are cammed, and lip reading
| is a thing
| danaris wrote:
| It seems likely that if there were spaces that could
| (both physically and politically) be assigned for this,
| they already would have been.
|
| Sure, it would be great if we could have nice things like
| that, but all too often we need to work with the
| infrastructure we have.
| ohhman11 wrote:
| It's so fundamentally terrifying that someone would consider
| that "totally fine".
|
| Prosecutors will take breaks in their offices within the same
| building while the defense has to leave the building in order
| to have a private conversation, that sounds _totally_ fair
| and reasonable.
| expedition32 wrote:
| Well there are times when attorneys are part of a criminal
| organisation and are used as a communication link to the
| outside world.
|
| Nobody considered that when the laws were written but we
| live in a world of billion dollar drug cartels.
| autoexec wrote:
| What's the security reason they need this? How many times has a
| security camera failed to do its job because it didn't have
| audio? What crimes do they thing they are going to solve? Are
| people breaking into the courthouse wearing masks but screaming
| their own names?
| b112 wrote:
| I think one problem is, almost all security cameras are sold
| with audio these days. If the cameras have a mic, telling
| people "Oh, we turned the mic off in each camera" or "We
| don't record the audio" isn't very helpful.
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| Just cut the cable for the microphone?
| wolvoleo wrote:
| It's often on the board as a MEMS microphone.
|
| But yes I've done this with all my ring cameras, they
| were still the old type. One of them was a bitch to open
| up though (the indoor one IIRC)
| 05 wrote:
| There's another problem with this because a camera with a
| mic cable cut would look from the outside exactly like a
| camera with mic cable intact, and maintenance is a thing,
| so eventually it's bound to be replaced by a camera with
| a working mic either by mistake or "by mistake" on
| purpose. There's a trust issue here since people who
| would be affected by the presence of a mic won't be able
| to easily visually verify that it's disabled.
| dpoloncsak wrote:
| Don't most of those dome/bubble cameras come without mics?
|
| I saw them advertised "With microphone" or something
| recently, which led me to assume that was a 'feature' of
| this model...but you know advertising
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| Surely as a compromise the police dept can put cameras with
| audio livestreaming from every room in police dept ?
| onionisafruit wrote:
| Or a compromise where defendants also have the same access to
| the camera feeds and pinky swear not to use the audio.
| corndoge wrote:
| Still asymmetric as the police have the resources to comb
| the feeds and individuals do not
| overtone1000 wrote:
| I am confident a gofundme would provide enough tokens for
| this work.
| gib444 wrote:
| CCTV with audio is a line that should not be crossed, but as
| there tech is there, they just can't resist
| giantg2 wrote:
| There should be no safety reason to require audio. The only
| reason for audio is later use for prosecution.
|
| It's not just that they don't want to piss off the lawyers. If
| they don't provide a private location, then they may be forced
| to take continuances and recesses so those conversations can
| happen elsewhere as a condition of not infringing on the
| constitutional right to effective counsel.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Might be quicker to detect disturbances using audio too
| rather than video only, think of ShotSpotter. Sounds made up
| though and probably either a way to spy or chill speech.
| hardolaf wrote:
| But ShotSpotter doesn't actually work (almost every alert
| is a false positive). So what value would this add?
| barbazoo wrote:
| No totally, I can't imagine it either, I was just trying
| to give it a charitable assumption.
| veunes wrote:
| Yeah, "we promise not to use it" is about the weakest possible
| control in a situation like that
| zmmmmm wrote:
| I couldn't read the article but am curious what the definition of
| "smart" is. Because if that is the exact wording then it seems to
| be extremely broad and probably capture some unintended cases.
|
| These kind of blanket bans are going to pose some real problems
| for the tech because people who wear prescription glasses will
| often get their prescription built in. So you can't take them off
| - you need them to see. And then there is another subset of blind
| and deaf users who are even more dependent on them. What are
| these people going to do once there are a non-trivial amount of
| places banning you from wearing them at all?
|
| I think the tech industry is far behind the eight ball on this.
| To their credit Meta actually did a half decent job out of the
| gate designing sensor-gated recording lights into the Raybans.
| But it's not enough. There needs to be an industry wide agreement
| on a standard where something like a bluetooth beacon can shut
| off recording. Then maybe you have a chance of this category not
| becoming Google Glass 2.0. Otherwise I'm struggling to see how
| this ship won't sink.
| simonw wrote:
| I think it's a _very_ bad idea for a prescription glasses
| wearer to have only a single pair of glasses where that single
| pair has a built in camera.
| garbawarb wrote:
| It sounds like OP is talking about having this extra pair
| with them where they go, not just having a pair in general.
| tdeck wrote:
| Which is a fair expectation IMO. There are plenty of places
| where it's not appropriate to record that they might
| encounter in the course of a normal day.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I've thought about that before. On one hand: "I need these to
| see." Other: "No, you need _some_ glasses to see. Picking
| these as your only pair was bad decision making."
| zmmmmm wrote:
| It's not just "having" them though, it's carrying them
| everywhere and constantly swapping over to your dumb glasses
| as you walk in and out of places that don't like the smart
| ones.
|
| Which is sort of my point: when main purpose is convenience,
| if you have to do something inconvenient to use it then you
| killed the thing altogether. So if manufacturers want this to
| fly, they need to sort out the privacy question before
| there's a sign on every public place saying "no recording
| glasses". If I was in Meta's position, i'd be going to
| regulators to ban glasses without an externally controlled
| hard shutoff mechanism.
|
| It might seem a trivial thing currently, but some of these
| factors will be the ultimate determinants of exactly how much
| utility humans can get out of AI. If it can't see what you
| can see, it can't help you with that.
| simoncion wrote:
| > [W]hen main purpose is convenience, if you have to do
| something inconvenient to use it then you killed the thing
| altogether.
|
| Funny. Because UV-activated darkening lenses inevitably
| fail in a half-darkened state, I have a pair of always-dark
| prescription sunglasses and prescription -er- clearglasses.
| I can tell you from personal experience that it's
| inconvenient to carry both and swap between the two as my
| location and the time of day changes, and yet... _somehow_
| there 's still a solid market for always-dark prescription
| eyeglasses.
|
| Weird, innit?
| aiiane wrote:
| The important part of the article:
|
| > From then on, any eyewear with video and audio recording
| capability will be forbidden in all of the First Judicial
| District buildings, courthouses, or offices, even for people
| who have a prescription. Other devices with recording
| capabilities like cell phones and laptops continue to be
| allowed inside courtrooms but must be powered off and stowed
| away.
|
| It's defined as having recording capability, which is quite a
| reasonable restriction to make, IMO.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| That's actually not too bad - it leaves space for devices
| that do have cameras or microphones for other reasons, as
| long as they don't persist the output. So you could do real
| time recognition for assistive devices etc.
| macintux wrote:
| What about facial recognition? Even without persistence
| that's a big deal for juries.
| qmr wrote:
| If they can afford stupid "smart" glasses they can afford dumb
| glasses.
|
| > There needs to be an industry wide agreement on a standard
| where something like a bluetooth beacon can shut off recording.
|
| Yes, this is a great idea. Hardware hackers can then quickly
| clone these beacons and spam $5 glass hole blockers everywhere.
| k310 wrote:
| Nearby Glasses for Android [0] tries to detect smart glasses.
|
| Before the court makes you shut off your Android device.
|
| An ios BT detector might also work.
|
| [0]
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.pocketpc.ne...
| Kuinox wrote:
| Never managed to make it work in background.
| kittikitti wrote:
| This is a great rule and I hope to hear about other courts
| implement it. Smart eyeglasses are an invasion of privacy and
| inside a courtroom they're certainly a threat. Especially because
| the tech monopolies and their surveillance technologies have
| proven to be incredible privacy liabilities.
| pseingatl wrote:
| Florida allows cameras in the courtroom, as do other, but not
| all, States. You have no expectation of privacy in a Florida
| courtroom during a public trial. Trials are supposed to be
| public. Thanks to Doc Shepherd (Ohio, 1954) cameras are banned
| in federal courts, but the trials themselves are public.
| There's nothing stopping you from entering and memorializing a
| proceeding using a court reporter.
| imsohotness wrote:
| I wonder if these items could be banned from college/lecture
| halls
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Smart eyeglasses are illegal in my state, unquestionably.
|
| The law mandates that any "secret" recording is illegal. This is
| different from the usual standard, which is whether someone is
| recording people who are in a place where they have an
| expectation of privacy or not.
|
| It doesn't matter if you're on the street, in someone's home, a
| courtroom. A tiny little LED doesn't rectify that. Nobody expects
| someone's eyeglasses to be recording them.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Which state bans photography in public? I'm sure quite a few 1a
| auditors would be interested in travelling there.
| shagie wrote:
| I suspect you're referring to Massachusetts -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_call_recording_laws#...
| Massachusetts (only "secret" recordings are banned, but is the
| only state without a "public location" exception. Despite
| having a 1968 law imposing general bans on taping wire and oral
| communications, it was later ruled to violate the First
| Amendment in the conditions espoused in a case filed by Project
| Veritas in 2018.)
|
| The case mentioned was
| https://web.archive.org/web/20211110033315/https://apnews.co...
|
| This also be more related to recording phone calls and specific
| conversations.
|
| https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/massachusetts-recording-law
|
| It appears to be more nuanced than "you can't walk around with
| a camera recording in Massachusetts."
| kettlecorn wrote:
| Side note: OP's account is named "Philadelphia" and this appears
| to be the first Philly related thing they've posted since 2013.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Philadelphia is a cheese brand in Germany, maybe they just like
| that. Or the movie.
| rsstack wrote:
| Philadelphia cheese brand is from New York. Presumably, the
| German market licenses the brand but produces locally in
| Europe and doesn't import from the US (New York and
| Wisconsin).
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| I had my first interaction with someone wearing Meta(I assume)
| glasses and it was very disconcerting. Ironically I was
| collecting my new (non-smart) glasses and it was the employee I
| was interacting with. I really wanted to ask for someone else to
| deal with me but since there has been no furore this time around
| (my how times have changed since Goggle Glass) I decided not to
| risk a scene
| sheiyei wrote:
| When I need to get new glasses my first requirement is that the
| store doesn't sell Meta Creep Glasses
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| > I really wanted to ask for someone else to deal with me but
| since there has been no furore this time around (my how times
| have changed since Goggle Glass) I decided not to risk a scene
|
| Isn't it fair to stand to your own principles even if others
| are moving in a different direction?
| collinmcnulty wrote:
| I think social pressure is the best weapon we have against
| these. The people who use them want to seem cool, so make it
| seem like these are weird, dorky, and creepy and they won't
| take off.
| internet_points wrote:
| Oh, I thought it was in all of Philadelphia, but it's just inside
| courtrooms :(
| miki123211 wrote:
| We really need a disability exception for things like this.
|
| Meta Glasses are a hit in the blind community (for obvious
| reasons). Things will really come to a head when we finally get
| working face recognition tech.
|
| I wonder if this law could be challenged on ADA reasonable
| accommodation grounds.
| siruwastaken wrote:
| Is this from the standpoint if a defendant in a court case
| being allowed to wear smartglasses or in general any visitor
| having that privilege. Because in general it seems that the
| restrictions on video cameras imposed in court rooms should
| simply extend to smartglasses as well. Just because it is in
| the form of glasses shouldn't suddenly make taking video
| cameras everywhere acceptable. And I fear to think that there
| could be a backdoor added to the software that shares all the
| videos with Meta.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| No, we really need blind assistance devices that don't store
| data and process it locally.
|
| Those devices are already not banned.
| miki123211 wrote:
| Local models just aren't good enough for this. Not in a
| device that has to be energy-efficient, fit in a pocket and
| conserve its storage for other things the user may want to do
| with it.
|
| Unless you have a homelab (which is just cloud under a
| different name), there's no way of doing a reasonable job
| here without sending your data to a third party.
|
| In this case, preserving privacy and anti-discrimination are
| goals that you just can't reconcile.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Once the glasses become popular, so will jammers. By jammers I
| mean audio and visual disruption to make the recordings unusable,
| or nearly so.
| pickleglitch wrote:
| Heck, I'd buy a jammer now if one were available at a
| reasonable price.
| deltoidmaximus wrote:
| What are you jamming here? The wireless connection? Wouldn't
| the recorded data just be cached on device until out of the
| jamming range?
| giantg2 wrote:
| You would be jamming the audio and video, not the wireless
| (that is generally illegal). They have some devices to do
| this already with different noise generators and overloading
| the camera sensors to cause unidentifiable images (especially
| with IR night vision).
| foodevl wrote:
| My dad wears smart glasses because he's nearly deaf and the
| classes show captions for the person he's talking to. They're
| great. He doesn't use or care at all about the camera. Having the
| captions would be very useful to him in a courtroom setting.
| Collateral damage I guess.
| imglorp wrote:
| There are glasses that do only captions, no recording or
| camera.
|
| The article says "any eyewear with video and audio recording
| capability" which makes sense. Although even that is
| unreasonably specific and should just say "recording or
| transmission device" to ban the activity and not the item.
| randallsquared wrote:
| Pretty sure any device which subtitles audio could be used to
| record that audio.
| shimman wrote:
| Then it's up to the company to make a compliant device if
| they want it to be used in a courtroom.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| This is a courthouse. Judges still have king-like powers in
| their rooms. Anyone with a real problem will certainly be able
| to request and be granted an exemption.
|
| That said, get caught misusing such an exemption and you will
| be hauled in for direct contempt. No big trial. No witnesses.
| Just the judge ordering you into 30 days custody.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Courts also tend to have existing accessibility setups for
| these scenarios.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| And they are all poorly maintained and/or not functioning.
| If anyone walks in with their own solution, they will be
| accomidated. (Metaphor approaching) No judge is going to
| yank away a blind man's walking stick because it isnt the
| approved walking stick.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| A walking stick isn't the same as a recording device.
|
| If your walking stick has a sword in it like the old spy
| movies, you won't be getting accommodated either. You'll
| be getting a loaner or a wheelchair.
| shrx wrote:
| Wow that's amazing. Which glasses can do this?
| Anonbrit wrote:
| He can apply to the court for special permission - and probably
| use ADA to guide permission
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Putting aside that judges can make exceptions when
| circumstances warrant, one would think that this function
| (providing live captioning of the proceedings) would be a
| reasonable accommodation that courts should be able to provide.
| Especially now that every courtroom is (or can be) equipped for
| sound and video to support remote operation, it shouldn't be
| too difficult to support a display with the captioning via the
| court IT system and alleviate any concerns about surreptitious
| recording.
| jprjr_ wrote:
| There's already a stenographer recording the proceeding,
| right? I'd think you could project what they're recording
| onto a display somewhere.
| barbazoo wrote:
| You'd have to translate what the stenographer wrote,
| whichever system they used, into plaintext first. A
| layperson won't be able to understand that.
|
| I'd imagine already if not soon we'll have small speech-to-
| text models that can run in realtime.
| veunes wrote:
| Yet I get why courts are nervous about anything with a hidden
| camera/mic
| randallsquared wrote:
| The vibe around smart glasses is so weird: Governments and
| businesses can record in public, which is right and proper, but
| if an individual person records what they see, _that 's_ wrong
| and creepy.
| wongarsu wrote:
| The original assumption behind CCTV was that it's recorded but
| realistically never seen, or maybe seen by one person staring
| at a bunch of screens at once. That's what made it acceptable.
|
| Of course this has changed drastically, but CCTV basically got
| grandfathered in in most people's minds.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| CCTV also writes over itself over time.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| For $650, I just purchased a consumer-level CCTV (writes
| locally, on a loop) which can auto-detect all humans,
| vehicles, and pets -- creating montages of visitors (for
| later review). This is entirely offline, eight camera, just
| over two weeks retention at 12MP (configurable to months with
| dual SATA slots and video setting changes).
|
| What cloud recording is capable of determining... is
| absolutely limitless. I think this is what makes Flock so
| scary / "different."
| veunes wrote:
| A fixed security camera is visible, scoped to a specific area,
| and (in theory) governed by policy, retention limits, audits,
| etc. Smart glasses are much harder to notice and can record
| anywhere
| expedition32 wrote:
| Yes in my country there are rules a about security cameras-
| not that anyone follows them but they exist and you can
| theoretically sue someone over them.
|
| Glassholes are new. We can tell when someone is trying to
| film eleven year olds in a public swimming pool but this is
| the new frontier.
| lrobinovitch wrote:
| The reasonable suspicion around random people wearing secret
| face cameras is consistent with the idea that both more
| government and more corporate surveillance are bad.
| mattmanser wrote:
| It's because wrong and creepy people will use what they record
| for wrong and creepy things. Especially when it comes to women.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/18/disturbing-r...
| kakacik wrote:
| Everything is effin' creepy, your rights end where my start and
| all that. And I will guard my and my family privacy with closed
| fist traveling at non-trivial speed to face of folks
| deliberately wearing such glasses and recording, pedophiles or
| not. Its also punishable by law to record people without prior
| consent where I live (Switzerland), and not just theoretically
| on paper.
|
| Since fighting government is extremely hard, lets tackle lower
| hanging fruit above first and try for the best case scenario
| later. Also, government can claim its primarily for security,
| whether true or not depends on the case but private folks can
| hardly claim that.
| halapro wrote:
| To be fair cameras on every fn corner is also creepy. But
| cameras on uncle Ronny are creepier because they're closer and
| they're usually pointed at glutes.
| fortran77 wrote:
| I would think that most people in a courtroom (defendants,
| jurors, lawyers, members of the public) would be prohibitied from
| filming most court proceedings with any sort of audio/video
| recording device. So this "ban" is really just a clarification.
| veunes wrote:
| Curious how they'll handle accessibility/prescription edge cases
| (especially if someone relies on assistive features built into
| these devices)
| HWR_14 wrote:
| The ruling makes an exception for assistive devices that are
| designed not to persist data. And if you need a prescription,
| you should have a pair of dumb glasses
| Ir0nMan wrote:
| https://archive.is/XMmas
| acd wrote:
| The problem is when people wear "smart" aka dumb privacy glasses
| in public restrooms. Should be banned or geofenced
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