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Comment by pj_mukh | Hacker News Reader

>> "The glass only seems to appeal to a certain type of people anyway."

What type of people is that? I am just a dad who has them and films his kids doing cute things without making the phone camera an ever present intrusion while outdoors.

It's fine, it's Meta, suspicion is warranted, but I'm hoping it can be moderated and directed. People like me are kind of left out right now in what seems to be a runaway narrative.

P.S: Would love a suggestion that doesn't involve angrily telling parents to not take pictures of their kids as an alternative. It sucks that I have to explain that this will be happening anyway.

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You say suspicion is warranted, you're still not only charging forward with this but also complaining about other people's perception of you doing so. You're not being left out, you're included in the narrative. You just don't like it.

I hope, for the kids' sake, in addition to normalizing the idea that it's okay for dad to be recording them without their awareness, you teach them that most people find the idea of strangers doing this to be creepy and distasteful (for good reason), so they need to be wary around Meta glasses despite seeing them as a quotidian thing.

If you gave me a non-Meta glass like this, I'd happily switch, and FWIW, if I saw some evidence of Meta doing something untoward with this data, I'd dump them immediately. An unaction'd patent and breathless headlines over "creep glasses" is all I have to go on for now.

"in addition to normalizing the idea that it's okay for dad to be recording them without their awareness"

They're 2 man. You're at the point of questioning whether parents should be allowed to film their infants. Do we think we're off the deep end a bit?

It's meta - they've been caught doing untoward things at virtually every opportunity. Are you looking for something specific, like the creation of virtual CSAM with them or something? I'm fine with starting out by giving people/companies the benefit of the doubt I guess, but once they have shown you their true colors, you should listen.

>>like the creation of virtual CSAM with them

You think Meta is going to create CSAM with my data?

Like I would dump them for using my data for analytics without my permission, but we probably should recalibrate our expectations a bit here.

I feel like these people are actually doing a favor for Meta, painting those who oppose them as lunatics who are completely detached from reality

FYI: https://www.wired.com/story/meta-ran-ads-that-contained-ai-g...

FWIW, I hope they get sued to the high heavens for allowing these ads, but this has nothing to do with the issue laid out above.

I take this story as a clear sign that they are careless & it most likely IS happening at some scale in systems that generate/personalize ad variants, chatbots, suggested interactions, etc. For another example of shipping very inappropriate things:

- https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-ai-chatbots-sex-a25311bf - https://www.404media.co/instagram-is-blocking-minors-from-ac...

Back to the original inference, anyway… generative ad Personalization instances DO NOT (afaik) appear in the public repository of ads. Researchers can't see it, but do we have to strain our imaginations to think that things like nudify apps aren't taking advantage of tools that do things like drop user avatars into their pitch? e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1uhy9yn/instagram_...

I don't have a specific citation to offer, but tbh I've seen enough.

>if I saw some evidence of Meta doing something untoward with this data

going to hold my tongue regarding the majority of this conversation, but i couldn't help myself here.

meta has one of the worst track records of doing untoward things with data. a pattern of abusing its user's data, built over years. if you are still okay with them now, i am doubting your words that anything they could do would make you "dump them immediately".

At what age will you put the glasses away?

Because you're not _just_ recording your kids. You are a walking surveillance camera that nobody has consented to.

Which is true for all parents recording all kids with every kind of camera, also in a way that is totally un-actionable.

Good faith question:

If your worry is, "I don't know you're recording", what did you do with that information when someone was using a digital camera to video record their kids 15 years ago, with you in the background?

P.S: if your answer is just "you could be a creep", I totally empathize, but this is for the situation where I am actually just a parent.

My phone's camera is not playing all the time and doesn't send the data to Meta. It just records a file locally, it's not the same at all.

That's..exactly how the Meta glasses work :/, and there has been no evidence otherwise so far.

Would love to see it if I missed this.

There have already been stories about meta contractors being able to watch the footage people are recording with the glasses. Recordings included people undressing, on the toilet, and other explicit stuff.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/meta-workers-seeing-dist...

Yes, That’s an opt-in feature. You can record all the footage you want and keep it on your phone, and they won’t see any of it, unless you ask for it be analyzed by their AI (as laid out in the article you shared). Of course if there was evidence they’re doing it when I haven’t opted in I’d dump em.

It’s made clear during onboarding, but I’m sure it could be better.

People don't like to be watched and recorded. That's it.

This data - which includes their facial features, geolocation, and activities is not yours to take and immortalize.

This should be intuitive to any empathetic human being. One person saying "this breaches my sense of safety and privacy" should be enough for you to understand.

Meta was caught so many times on stealing user data and bypassing privacy controls that I don't even know how can you suggest believing them with straight face.

The glasses are a trust destroying device that degrades privacy.

If someone shoves a camera in my face in public I am going to move away from that person. If I see them filming someone with me in the background at least I know what is going on and can judge the situation accordingly.

Now I don't know. Everyone with glasses is a suspect. It's more public tension, hyper vigilance and uncertainty.

> what did you do with that information when someone was using a digital camera to video record their kids 15 years ago, with you in the background?

I'm the asshole that covers his face while flipping off the person with the camera. I've done this for years. It used to be for news or other TV based content that they would blur out the finger gesture which meant blurring out my face. I've also noticed a camera in public places and deliberately stepped behind someone else as a blocker, or just moved to be behind the person with the camera. These are easy to do when it's obvious there's a camera. Glassholes are much more difficult to notice. Comparing these as equivalent is just a lack of being rational.

Everybody has been a walking surveilance camera for at least 26 years if not much longer

Walking microphone at best, though I think not "everyone" until early 2010s.

Given pockets, I don't think the camera part has ever been an "everyone"-level problem.

Why shouldn't I tell you not to take pictures of your kids. They're too young to opt into having their faces enrolled in Zuck's facial recognition database.

What database is that? If your claim is to not post it on Facebook, I agree.

Meta has a history of siphoning any data they technically can. Do you really think those "local only" photographs are going to remain so? There will never be a point where you miss the EULA change and don't opt out in the 45 seconds before the data are all uploaded?

They have to notify me of the EULA change. Like I said there’s an army of journalists watching Zuckerberg type every key on his keyboard right now.

I’m not feeling bad for him, but I’m also betting he’s not about to do something stupid like that.

I would not trust my kids safety to "Zuckerberg will be restrained by the possibility of bad press".

And at this point, let me say you seem to care about your kids and probably have the technical skills and attention to make sure they never end up in his database. But you are an exception, and society needs to protect the children of parents who care less.

To say a phone is intrusive but Meta glasses are not is an interesting choice of words. As a parent, I get what you mean but as a privacy aware member of the tech community I think the word you want is "disruptive" or "distracting."

You liberty is worth nothing. You could hold a camera in your hands. Get a go-pro that records locally, or choose any other option. But nope, you're hoping you can record your child, put their faces in a recognition database associate precise location data, and then hope that Meta does not use this data in ways you don't approve of. (or merely sell it to an endless string of data brokers)

"put their faces in a recognition database"

Just so we're clear and can read past the headlines. This database doesn't exist and there has been no evidence that a database built off of meta ray-bans exists. And I would obviously dump the ray bans if this was actually a thing.

Doesn't it?

The technology exists to build it. The pipelines exist to populate it. The marketing engine exists to leverage it for targeted delivery of content.

And yet, somehow, nobody's built it?

How sure are you of that?

How would it be monetized? And if it has been, where can I buy this? And if you can't doesn't that make you question your assumptions?

> How would it be monetized?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Facebook

> And if it has been, where can I buy this?

Depending on your preference: their advertising portal, or a stock broker.

and the technology exists to spy on everything you do in every single way, ignore gdpr, ignore all kinds of privacy acts, in fact you can also stalk people and find out where they live and break into their homes and look through their stuff and plant hidden cameras and other fun stuff

you can do that, but you have no clue as to why people/companies don't tend to do those things?

it is sort of funny that most of your examples of things companies "tend not to do" end up on the news fairly regularly.

big tech ignoring gdpr, ignoring or working around privacy protections, their technology being easily abused for stalking or harassment with no effort put into curtailing bad behavior, location data being bought and sold, etc.

i think the only thing from your list i haven't seen in the news in the last couple of months is employees of big tech doing break & enters.

(and this is all before we even approach the topic of data breaches!)

they still don't just completely ignore regulations, like do we really think they just don't apply to them?

we're talking about meta supposedly using facial recognition on the glasses to build a master database of faces or something

like if I was Zuckerberg I would not want to do that, it would lead to a congressional hearing and all kinds of lawsuits I'd imagine.

like where do we draw the line on plausible?

or do we just go and say yeah meta must be spying on everything and feeding everything to a database where they sell everything about you

like what about CCTV backups or robo vac camera feeds? should we assume that companies are deliberately sending all the data so they can sell raw video feeds and they just don't tell you?

I'm not counting in incompetence and data breaches, I'm talking about intentional stuff

Facebook itself is such a database, is it not?

I mean, it's literally in the name?

There is no Rayban data in Facebook. There is no connection and no way to use one with the other (other than voluntarily posting your own video to FB/Insta)

You're arguing really really hard in favor of Meta Raybans, even to the point of coming up with excuses and false analogies. It's almost like you're arguing in bad faith and claiming ignorance of Meta's bad faith implementation of all the surveillance features they've been pushing.

Why?

Given Meta's history of disregarding everyone who's not Zuck (and him being a sociopath), why give them the benefit of any kind of doubt? Right now, everyone should assume malice as the first explanation, and then accept that maybe there was some ineptitude once evidence appears.

> other than voluntarily posting your own video to FB/Insta

So, nothing except the main sales pitch then?

> There is no Rayban data in Facebook

There is no war in Ba Sing Se?

Is the claim that meta uses publicly posted videos as a source for ads? The meta glasses are irrelevant to that fact.

I’d be happy to join some kind of rage-off at metas general practices but my claim was specifically just about the glasses data

The database is literally Facebook, you upload a picture or video and there it is, on the database, which is Facebook itself, that's why it's called "Face" book: because it is a database of Faces named after an actual book of photos of faces.

The Meta glasses, like everything Meta does, is marketed as a tool for interacting with Meta's services. Including Facebook.

“There has been no evidence that a database built off of meta ray-bans exists.”

This was my only claim. Which remains true. Videos off of the glasses voluntarily posted on FB is no different than iPhone videos posted on FB so it has nothing to do with the glasses themselves. If your claim is “posting videos in FB is a bad idea”, I agree, I don’t do that but again, that has nothing to do with the glasses either. It doesn’t make posting easier or force me to opt-out of automatically posting or anything silly like that

And you can’t do any “facial recognition” against Facebook either. I’m glad meta figured out that was a pointless bad idea.

> without making the phone camera an ever present intrusion while outdoors

You don't have to be constantly filming your kids, that's optional.

This is a cute spin, but what you're saying is "I like the glasses because I can film people without them knowing" it just happens the people in this case are (mostly) your children.

>> what you're saying is "I like the knives because I can cut things" it just happens the "things" in this case are (mostly) your vegetables.

Again, I'm not saying this out of some bad faith, I just think this argument doesn't work the way you think it does. We actually have no data as to what its most commonly used for, apart from the headlines. Anecdotally, all my friends who have them use it for the exact same reason I do.

Good analogy. If there was a tool that could do everything a knife can do without being able to cut people, knives wouldn't be nearly as common and anyone who insisted on carrying one in public would be suspect. "I need it to cut vegetables," would not be a reasonable excuse, because there's an alternative.

There is an alternative to your stealthy camera glasses, which you are aware of, and your admitted use case for them is filming people who are unaware that you are filming. Yet you can't imagine other people use them for the same purpose? I'm trying to assume good faith but you're not making it easy.

"your admitted use case is filming people who are unaware you are filming"

For the record the "people" here is my 2 year old. And I'm the one making a bad faith argument?

So because you use them to stealthily film your 2 year old, there's no way other people use them to stealthy film other people in less acceptable ways?

This confirms it, you're being deliberately obtuse.

So its either the "ever present intrusion" of camera or the ever present intrusion of the glasses? Cant you just live your fucking life without recording everything?

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