GoKawiilI wear Meta's Ray-Bans off and on when I travel to snap photos, take phone calls and listen to music. The technology is fascinating, fun and convenient.
I also knew that Meta's privacy policies might be a concern, but now I'm more worried about it than ever before.
My concerns ramped up after a number of friends and colleagues shared a report about Meta's third-party contractors in Kenya being able to view sensitive information like photos of banking records, nudity and sexual encounters that had been recorded on Meta glasses (which has resulted in a class action lawsuit).
What boundaries had Meta set up to protect people's privacy? I pored over Meta's terms of service online and in the Meta AI app, but that was no help.
I wanted some answers. So I contacted Meta's comms team to get clarity.
But even after getting the official answer from Meta about where the lines are drawn, I'm still frustrated and uncertain. While many people are rightly worried about someone secretly recording them with smart glasses, there's also another wrinkle: When are these glasses potentially sharing what you've been recording with others?
Here's a short answer: Do Meta's glasses have third-party contractors potentially looking over your data? Yes, sometimes -- if you're using AI services. If you're not using those AI services, then according to Meta, you should be OK. But even then, I don't know where that "AI services" wall gets clearly drawn. And that's one of my biggest concerns.
Meta has had a long history of problems with both privacy and trust, extending into the last decade and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Those issues haven't come up with Meta's VR headsets, which don't have many data-collecting AI services, but the company's smart glasses do. And those services will keep growing and becoming more capable over the next few years. Meta's popular Ray-Ban glasses -- more than 7 million pairs were sold last year -- are the frontrunners in a whole wave of camera-enabled AI glasses and wearables coming from a number of companies, with Google entering the mix later this year.
If you're interested in Meta's glasses, which, as a technical achievement, are the best-quality camera and audio-enabled smart glasses at the moment, you need to keep these concerns in mind. And as smart glasses pivot to always-on AI-enabled devices, we're only going to run into more questions about how comfortable you might feel leaning on their services -- and what all the cloud-based AI tech companies need to do to make these policies clearer.
Below, I'm going to share Meta's responses at length so you can understand my reasoning -- and also make your own assessment about the risks.
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