Facial recognition glasses turn everyday life into creepy privacy nightmare | Hacker News Reader

Facial recognition glasses turn everyday life into creepy privacy nightmare

foxnews.com

14 pointsthunderbong9 comments

Related from 23 days ago, when the story broke:

Meta smart glasses can be used to dox anyone in seconds, study finds (31 points, 7 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41724957

Students Add Face Recognition to Meta's Glasses to Dox Strangers in Real Time (13 points, 8 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41724310

> To use it, the wearer simply puts on the glasses while walking by people. The glasses then detect when somebody's face is in the frame. This photo is used to analyze the individual, and after a few seconds, their personal information appears on the user's phone.

I have something called prosopagnosia - face blindness: while I know what a face is, and can read faces for emotional signals with no problems, the cabling between the face recognition areas in my brain and my database of facts about that face is sub-optimal. Where others can look at someone and immediately know if they know that person and what interactions they've had in the past - that doesn't happen for me. Instead I have to rely on other signals - their voice, the way they walk, typical clothes for that person, etc - to get the connection between person and my memories of that person.

Having a pair of glasses that could take the face of a person in front of me and (reliably) let me know I know that person, what their name is and what relationship we have with each other would be really useful. But if it can't do the matching in less than a couple of seconds then it's not going to be helpful to me - people can get really upset if their friends, relations, neighbours, etc don't know who they are within a second of that first contact.

I don't like all the other AI information gathering stuff. I just want the name of the face in front of me.

Could be made a little less creepy if it had no internet access and you could load in new people as you interact with them so it uses a local cache for lookups.

Exactly! Explaining to people that I'm face-blind is a chore - people often forget! Asking them if I can take a picture of them during that first explanation (which often starts as an apology) so that my glasses could try and recognise them the next time we meet would be a much happier approach, in my view. And keeping as much as possible local to the glasses - especially the face images ... I'm struggling to see a better solution!

Meta smart glasses or any camera, the problem is not in what you are using, the problem is how easy it is to dig out the information about people in real-time.

They are two related and valid problems.

In the UK, speed cameras are painted bright yellow.

These are Raybans - designed for social dynamics - with the addition of a concealed camera.

Both are “any camera” that can dig out realtime information about people. Not this comment per se, but the lack of critical thinking in comments here on topics like this is frightening. Especially given this is where you’d hope to find the discussion, and likely contains many people steering this technology and change. And to be honest, my critical thinking ain’t that sharp but I can see something interesting beyond its any camera.

  the lack of critical thinking in comments here on topics like this is
  frightening. Especially given this is where you’d hope to find the discussion

This is true and it is frustrating. In the 2020's, you really shouldn't be able to finish a CompSci degree without at least one course in the ethics/history of technology.

As you point out, the data collection that enables this privacy abomination is the larger problem...

...but not by much. The difference here is that spying with glasses is passive, whereas spying with other devices requires the spy to take some kind of action.

If some stranger wants to identify me using their smart phone, or other portable camera, they need (1) to care enough about me to bother (2) to physically hold up their device (which draws attention, and is socially unacceptable).

But smart glasses, CCTV, and other passive spy devices are much worse: the subjects being spied upon can be spied upon en masse, and get fewer opportunities even to notice they are on camera.

The variety of devices available on the market surpasses your imagination. Meta's glasses use the same cameras that may be embedded elsewhere in hats and clothing. There are smaller and larger cameras. Meta's glasses simply provide a single person with real-time operational feedback. Whoever is spying usually already knows what they are after. I can't grasp why people are not frightened by the fact that their information can be so easily accessed, yet they are concentrating on some specific device (yes, with some additional benefits for the user, though it's not the only device of its kind).

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