The annoying thing is that even if you yourself don't use these glasses, as long as people around you do, you are still affected by it. We really need laws to limit always-on recording devices in places where we have an expectation of privacy.
There are very few places you can expect privacy in public. Restrooms, changing rooms, etc. But in most places in public you should have zero expectation of privacy (in the US).
In private settings, as with public, you are typically free to leave a setting where people are recording.
The law has no specifications for what type of device can do the recording, pr for how long a recording can be.
> in most places in public you should have zero expectation of privacy (in the US)
Shouldn't there be a discussion about what that means? What _is_ privacy? Is it completely black or white, all or nothing? Are some kinds of privacy breaches more acceptable than others?
I feel that the "you can have no expectation of privacy in public" discussion is some times used as if it's some sort of fundamental truth that must not be challenged. If people _want_ to have more privacy in public, whatever that means, then let's make it happen.
Wear a burqa if you want total privacy while in public. Or prosthetics, I guess. I've seen people wearing full-face reflective shields in public - but that was mostly as a sun-shield to protect their ever-shriveling faces. The only thing stopping you from having real privacy while in public is social norms.
Other than that I don't see a way to remain "private" while in "public" with the current laws that we have, and I kind of like the laws that we have.
These are the same laws that let us record law enforcement, which is especially useful when they abuse their power - something that happens far to often. If the laws around recording in public were altered, then we likely also lose that right, and then law enforcement becomes even more dangerous to the citizens.
This isn't about recording. Recording was always ok. I could always record you in public. You could be part of my personal video collection, or I could use the clip of you in journalism.
But if I record you and use it in a TV commercial, that's different. The recording isn't the problem, it's what's done to the recording.
Now I'd ask: is sending the video of you to a Meta server so they can recognize your face at a specific store and location and influence which ads your mom see on Facebook more like a) journalism and personal use or which is acceptable b) the case where I recorded you and used your face in the TV commercial, which isn't acceptable?
>But if I record you and use it in a TV commercial, that's different. The recording isn't the problem, it's what's done to the recording.
You're moving goalposts. Of course using video of someone in a TV commercial requires consent. I never disputed any of that.
>is sending the video of you to a Meta server so they can recognize your face at a specific store and location and influence which ads your mom see on Facebook more like a) journalism and personal use or which is acceptable b) the case where I recorded you and used your face in the TV commercial, which isn't acceptable?
It's more like A. It isn't like B at all. But I purposely refuse to let friends take photos of me, and opt-out of group photos, because I know those photos end up on Facebook, where Facebook can do whatever they want with it short of using my likeness in an ad - at least that should be how it works, but Facebook doesn't really give a fuck about anything or anyone, so YMMV. Actual advertising companies and media companies will not use a likeness without consent, and I see plenty of faces blurred out in some "reality" shows where they did not get consent from specific people.
I can take a photo of you in public, and I can do lots of things with that photo. But if I want to sell something based on your photo, then I need to ask your permission.
Do you understand now?
This has happened to me before - someone took a photo of me and used it in an ad, and someone I know saw the ad and sent it to me... so I asked the company to stop using my photo to advertise their product, and they complied. Yes, they should have asked to use the photo first, but they likely found the photo someone else took who posted on the internet and someone at the company loved it so much (it was a great, unique photo) and wanted to use it in a fun way to promote their product. No, they should not have done that, but I get why they wanted to. Maybe they thought that sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than consent? I don't know, I don't care, but it wasn't that big a deal.
Also, FWIW, I just installed a new app called "Nearby Glasses" that scans for known bluetooth signatures of these recording glasses, and alerts when someone with these glasses is recording nearby.
> But if I want to sell something based on your photo, then I need to ask your permission. Do you understand now?
I understand, and I disagree. I think if you send video to Meta who uses it to make money (and likely offer you free services in return) then that's a commercial use of the recording. Whether it's similar to a tv-ad or not can be debated, but it's definitely recording and using it commercially.
So here's my opinion very simply: People should be required to ask for permission before sending recordings to endpoints where they even have a _risk_ of being used commercially (For example, training a LLM at Apple, or be used to improve self-driving cars at Tesla or whatever) then it should be the same as for using the recording in an a ad. Full explicit consent needed from everyone recognizable in the recording with their voice or likeness.
The same laws that let us record in public, also let us record law enforcement, which does give us a way to document abuse of power - something that happens all too often. If we start restricting recording in public, then we lose that right, and then law enforcement will become far more abusive with their power.
We need laws and social norms where filming a stranger and uploading it online is considered a serious unacceptable offense regardless of the device. I find it absurd that today is completely acceptable to just film an unaware stranger and put the video online, especially since that the majority of the videos are about making fun of them or humiliate them.
You shouldn't expect privacy in public spaces. That's the nature of public spaces. In the US, freedom of press means anywhere public means you have no expectation of privacy, and should comport yourself as such; don't do anything or wear anything in public you wouldn't want to be recorded.
This is why paparazzi exist and how they operate. It's the dirty, dingy cost of having a free press, freedom of travel, freedom to hold public officials accountable, subject to the same laws you are; you can't waffle or restrict or grant exceptions, because those inevitably, invariably get abused by those in power.
It's amusing to always have this US-centric view touted as some ultimate truth while lacking any nuance.
I live in Germany and here there is absolutely an expectation of privacy in public spaces. The individual rights (privacy) are balanced with the collective rights (freedom of press) and both are allowed to exist, because based on the context of the situation one right can prevail on the other. To give you some simple examples: if I go to a public event, a political manifestation, then no: no expectation of privacy. But if I am walking around with my family in a park, yes there's absolute expectation of privacy even if I'm in a public space. Context matters and it's impossible to have just one broad and vague rule covering anything. Also keep in mind that a public figure automatically has lower expectations of privacy than a private citizen. While I can sue a paper for publishing a picture of me slacking at work, a public figure most likely cannot or would lose in court because the right of the people to get informed of his behavior is higher than his right for privacy. Who gets to decide? A healthy judiciary system, not "those in power".
Another interesting nuance of the law in Germany is: it's almost always illegal to take pictures or video of people that show their suffering or struggle. You cannot take a video of a man having a mental breakdown for example. Is this universal? No, of course a journalist will take a picture of a suffering man in the cold to send a message about inequality. If he ever will be sued it will be the judge to decide if in this specific instance the right of the individual or the right of the collective right should prevail.
The difference is public vs. private spaces. The supreme court in the US has defended the right to record videos in public. But if someone walks into my home, or my 3rd space, etc. with one of these on actively recording that should absolutely be criminalized and enforced.
>the majority of the videos are about making fun of them or humiliate them
That's just nonsense. Your feeds seem to be polluted by what you are seeking out, as I've never seen a video on any service that shows humiliation of anyone.
I watch a lot of 1st ammendment audit videos, and that is never about humiliation, though many people end up looking very ignorant of the laws concerning recording in public which is in the 1st ammendment.
Actually useful AR needs cameras, of course, so the technology has legitimate use cases, but you'd have to be a real asshole to wear them to a bar, or a restaurant, etc. Maybe we mandate that the glasses have to have a base station dongle, and if they're more than 10 feet from the dongle, recording doesn't work without incredibly obvious annoying lights indicating that recording is on?
A cultural convention that lets people make honest mistakes, but turn it off when someone says "hey, you're recording" seems like a good solution. Just need to make it easily visible and obvious to others - you can run around in public with a big news camera on your shoulder or a tripod and you usually won't get hassled. It's just the idea of being covertly recorded, even while in public, that gets creepy.
Maybe if we weigh legitimate use cases against privacy and end up deciding that the privacy is more important, then we just don't accept those use cases?
That is: we invent new awesome life-changing technology and we just... don't use it?
Like we could have navigational AR-glasses. The wearer sees arrows on the floor where to walk. And we could choose to not let anyone wear them in public even though what they do is useful, and there aren't any real privacy issues. But people around the wearer don't know that. That's the privacy concern.
Part of it is civics. You have the right to record in public. Being in a public space means you are consenting to being recorded; it's in public. It's not always moral, classy, correct, or good, but the alternative is the erosion of the principles of free press, freedom of expression, etc.
The form factor of the camera doesn't matter. We do have different constraints, but those are pretty solidly filled out in case law. I don't believe making recording glasses illegal to wear in public would withstand constitutional scrutiny. Mandating a visible notification with a conventional color, signaling things like "on" "passive" and "recording" would be constitutional and wouldn't infringe. That said, surreptitious use would likely be legal, e.g. aftermarket modification to allow recording with no lights; first amendment issues have a high bar and all sorts of secret camera precedents being legal. This is how corrupt politicians and cops and officials get caught, all the time, and it's highly unlikely to be smart glasses that gets the people and courts to flip on 1A.
> Being in a public space means you are consenting to being recorded;
I think we all know the black/white of: you can record all you want. You can not use my face in a commercial. That idea has served us well for a century. The problem is never the recording, it's what happens to the recorded material. If you just keep it for personal use, use it for journalism? That was never a problem.
I'd argue that using the recording to send to a different continent which is then processed by humans and/or computers and this then affects me or others (E.g. changes which ad the person next to me on the train sees on their phone) is now straddling a line somewhere between the black and white of "being recorded" and "being used in a commercial". That recording wasn't just this person observing or recording in a public space. It wasn't just used for "personal use" or journalism. It's something else.
I think it's this gray area that just needs to be cleared up. What if "transmitting a recording of someone to a commercial entity that potentially does commercial things with it" was classed just as "putting my face in the TV ad"?
The GDPR (and similar) also might help (where applicable).
And I think we need to redefine privacy as something that isn't black or white. In a bathroom or in my home I expect complete privacy. In the street I expect _less privacy_ but it doesn't mean I have "no expectation of privacy".
If my biometrics or a recording of my voice is sent to a different continent and then used to change which ad shows on the phone of the person next to me on the subway, then that's less privacy than I expected and wanted.
I heard that in Japan phones have an audible shutter sound. Not mandated by law. Though I think that having this in the law is very reasonable. Maybe EU can step up. Taking photos is more fun with the sound too.
"But it's the public space you can't expect any kind of privacy there, if you don't want private companies to do biometrics on your face from a rando glasses just don't go out :)"
The open air panopticon, where every inmate is also the warden, gov salivates at the idea.
(yes, yes, you're very smart, you, the reader: smartphones are already tracking and recording us everywhere. One more device, one more case isn't an issue anymore. So let's just keep adding them instead of trying to address them.)
