Meta announced privacy updates to its artificial intelligence-powered glasses after reports that users of the device were filming people without their consent.
The glasses include an LED light that signals when filming has started. Meta said it recently disabled the glasses’ cameras if the light is physically tampered with. The light previously had to be blocked before filming started to lock the recording function. Now, recording is disabled if a user starts filming and then covers the light, according to Meta.
“These investments are already having a deterrent effect — companies that were offering LED tampering services have shut down because the camera now deactivates when tampering is detected,” the company noted in an email to CBS News.
CBS News reported in August that a woman who was unknowingly filmed by a man wearing the glasses discovered a video of herself on social media. The woman said she was unaware she was being filmed and had never been asked for permission to be recorded.
“I had no say,” she told CBS News.
CBS News senior crime and public safety coordinating producer Anna Schecter tested the glasses last month and found that an earlier iteration of the disabling mechanism did not work when she covered the light after recording had begun.
Meta said the enhanced security feature now deactivates the recording function whenever tampering is detected.
“We’re going to keep rolling out updates like this to make sure the capture LED can reliably alert bystanders when photos or videos are being captured for someone’s gallery,” Alex Himel, vice president of wearables at Meta, said in a social media post last week. “Only a tiny minority of people try to get around these protections, and the fact they have to go to these lengths shows our efforts are working.”
In a new education and awareness campaign, Meta said it designed the light to signal to others when the glasses are capturing photos or recording videos.
The company said it has also taken other steps to address privacy concerns regarding its AI glasses. Those include removing online posts providing tampering instructions or services; removing thousands of harassing posts related to pickup artist and prank content; and blocking search terms and hashtags associated with violating content, such as “pickup artist” and “rizz” posts.
