EFFector Volume 38, Issue 6

👓 Who's Really Watching What Smartglasses See?

Welcome to an all-new EFFector, your regular digest on everything digital rights from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

In our 841st issue: EFF's next executive director; how publishers blocking the Internet Archive threaten the web's historical record; and the privacy implications of Meta Ray-Bans, the smartglasses from the makers of Facebook designed to be worn everywhere, all the time.

When you lose your rights online, you lose them in real life. Become an EFF member today!

Featured Story: Think Twice Before Buying or Using Meta’s Ray-Bans

Over the last decade or so, the tech industry has tried, and mostly failed, to make “smart glasses”—tech-infused glasses with cameras, AI, maps, displays, and more—a thing. But over the past year, products like Meta’s Ray-Ban Display Glasses and Oakley’s Meta Glasses have gone from a curious niche to the mainstream.

Before you strap a dashcam to your face and sprint out into the world filming everything and everyone in your life, there are some civil liberties and privacy concerns to consider before buying or using a pair.

You’re likely not the only one who can see (and hear) your footage. You can't use any AI features locally on Meta's glasses. So any time you use AI features, like when you say, “Hey Meta, start recording,” the footage is fed to Meta. You can use the glasses without the Meta AI app entirely, but considering you can’t easily download footage from the glasses to your phone without it, most people will likely use the app. Some videos are fed to Meta for AI training, and we know at least in some cases that those videos go through human review.

An investigation by Swedish newspapers found that workers were reviewing and annotating camera footage, which includes all sorts of sensitive videos, including nudity, sex, and going to the bathroom. Meta claimed to the BBC that this is in accordance with its terms of use, all in the name of AI training. The recorded audio from conversations with Meta AI are also ssaved by default, and if you don’t like that, tough luck, unless you go in and manually delete them every time you say something.

Filming all the time is even more privacy invasive than you think. A common argument in favor of using the cameras in smartglasses is that phones and cameras can do this too, and it’s never been a problem. But smartglasses are designed to resemble regular glasses, to the point where most reviews point out how friends didn’t notice that they had cameras embedded in them.

Moreover, constant recording of everything in public spaces can create all sorts of potential privacy problems, some more obvious than others. Our expectations of privacy shift when we’re in public, but bystanders in many cases will still have privacy interests. Public spaces are a place where you will be seen, but that shouldn’t mean it’s suddenly okay to catalog and identify everyone.

Consider the company’s track record and public statements. Perhaps one benefit of major tech companies entering this market is that we already have a good idea of how much they tend to respect the privacy of their users or the openness of their platforms. Spoiler, it’s often not much.

Meta has a long history of privacy invasive technologies and practices. We’ve heard rumblings that Meta hopes to add face recognition to its smartglasses, preferably, “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.” Yikes. This is a monumentally bad idea that should be abandoned by Meta and any of its competitors considering a similar feature.

On our blog, we dig deeper into these considerations, plus others (like "opt out of sharing with Meta where you can" and "consider blurring strangers if you’re going to upload video") if you already own a pair of smartglasses.

READ MORE…

‌EFF Updates

📣 EFF'S NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Nicole Ozer has been appointed as executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation effective June 1! With more than two decades leading public interest technology work, Ozer is a legal expert on privacy and surveillance, artificial intelligence, and digital speech. Ozer will succeed Cindy Cohn, who has been with EFF for more than 25 years and served as its executive director since 2015.

🏛 ERASING HISTORY: The Internet Archive—the world’s largest digital library—has preserved newspapers since it went online in the mid-1990s. In recent months, however, The New York Times began blocking the Archive from crawling its website. The Times says the move is driven by concerns about AI companies scraping news content. On our blog, we explain why blocking the Internet Archive won't stop AI, but will erase the web's historical record.

🤐 ONLINE CENSORSHIP: When Minnesota lawmaker Leigh Finke pointed out that age-gating content "harmful to minors" could block young LGBTQ+ people from exercising their First Amendment rights, she faced a wave of attacks from media outlets and religious advocacy groups. But Finke was right: online age-gates aren't about kids, they're about control. As we write, age-verification mandates are part of a larger effort to give the government much greater control of what young people are allowed to say, read, or see online.

🏆 GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY: During Sunshine Week each year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock give out The Foilies. These tongue-in-cheek "awards" recognize government agencies, officials, and contractors who have gone to belief-defying lengths to thwart public records requests. Read about all of this year's "winners"—from Homeland Security to Flock Safety—and what they've done to undermine the public's right to know.

Don’t Let Tyrants Co-opt Tech

Technology is supercharging the attack on democracy by making it easier to spy on people, block free speech, and control what we do. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s activists, lawyers, and technologists are fighting back.

Join the movement to Take Back CTRL when you donate to EFF today.

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