US police fear Meta smart glasses could be used to secretly record them
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
US police and federal agents are not alone in their fear. Concern among the public and privacy experts over Meta’s smart glasses, widely dubbed “pervert glasses”, is growing. The technology enables its wearers to record people without their consent and has already been used to harass people.The only situation I can see this being bad is with undercover investigations. This definitely has the potential to blow covers.
Same for police cameras. Overall they protect civilians and also the police itself. Does it mean they have to be careful and restrained when they chat? Sure. Does it allow management to be fussy? Yes. Yet, overall it’s a net good for everyone involved.
It looks like it’s too early to tell for certain. There are reports and police accounts that cover the spectrum. From what I’ve read online, a plurality of officers think it’s positive. Some say it has changed police and citizen behavior others say it hasn’t impacted citizen nor police behavior.
The overall temperature is positive. My take is that it’s positive as well. Bad cops and bad civilians don’t like it. The rest have some trepidation over privacy and some other aspects, but never the less see it as positive.
They don't like it when management uses it for frivolous minor policy enforcement or they feel like it reduces their ability to use discretion.
But overall police officers who are given cameras tend to me more positive after using them.
FWIW, with a foothold in both domains, this is quite similar to a cop forum poster dismissing all conversation on CVEs until they get a citation on whether or not SWEs like memory safe languages. It's asking for research, when it can only be afforded an opinion poll, and the issue is too complex to boil down to "yes" or "no" - i.e. some "no"s may reveal the underbelly of dislikable cops, some "no"s may reveal it causes them to lack discretion in enforcement due to an over-zealous manager.
You seem to be misreading what I said. I am pointing out that what I have are anecdotes and I would love to have some real data instead of folks just claiming what police like or dislike. I am sorry you feel the need to be slightly rude in your response too. Again I am not hand waving but simply saying it’s hard to believe cops like wearing them but I have no idea what they feel and I would love data instead of folks expressing ideas. Unions highly opposed the rollout of cameras and I know in the biased selection of videos we see, conversation is often muted. Sorry my post confused you, I am not claiming to know either way!
My takeaway is that like anything, generalizations miss a lot. BWC have lead to more efficient triage of complaints against police officers that even if sustained reduce the substantial amount of uncertainty. It is an open question to what degree BWC neutrally observe police behavior which is better than anecdotes or if the presence of the observer alters police behavior to meet standards.
https://academic.oup.com/policing/article/doi/10.1093/police...
As I understand it, there is a tough balance. Given presumptive release, always-on cams might disincline vulnerable populations whose cooperation is socially useful.
> large sticking point with most of the unions
Any change the conditions of employment desired by the employer becomes a negotiation point for a union, no conspiracy to hide misbehavior needed.
That assumes you appreciate unions. I think most like police and dockers unions are counter productive for everyone. But no conspiracy needed, it just sours the relationship
Maybe the cop would have refused to engage in an act of corruption without the camera being there, but I'm glad the camera is there to discourage corrupt behavior.
Since 2016, 2 out of 3 US officers supported body cameras. That percentage increases after uptake https://ircommons.uwf.edu/esploro/outputs/journalArticle/Pol... with even skeptical Police unions & advocacy orgs gradually speaking up in favor of cameras https://fop.net/letter/abc-act-hr-3248/ https://www.policeforum.org/trending6jan24 https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLE/comments/1uf0d3a/did_the_dema...
Ironically, having that neutral evidence has led to weird situations like Progressive cities stonewalling body cameras (citing budgets, storage concerns, makes the criminal look bad etc) despite equally Progressive Police Chiefs begging for them. https://www.wkow.com/news/madison-police-chief-pushes-for-bo... Even activist organization admit body cameras turned out mostly to the benefit of police https://prismreports.org/2024/07/16/complex-troubling-histor... so they demand police lose control of the cameras.
I think it'll be a few years before media outlets can ratify the real & sampled reality that tens-of-millions have already seen on Youtube
Interesting. By the same logic, shouldn't LEOs feel discouraged to wear balaclavas and other types of masks? For example, DHS officers in the US have been wearing masks with the excuse that it protects them from doxxing but if they're operating within the law, what do they have to fear? Transparency serves everyone.
People have put out apps to track them in order to doxx, hound and intimidate them. People organize neighborhood vigilantes to look out for ICE. Communities have chosen to not turn over violent offenders who are in the country illegally over to ICE. You have people pelting them with bricks and other objects. You also have the Dems in Calif saying that merely working for ICE should disqualify them from state jobs. And that's for a job that enforces US immigration law. The same law Obama used to deport more than Trump has. The same laws that have been in effect for many decades. If I were one of them, I probably would want protection from vigilantes too. What other countries do you have where immigration enforcement officers get hounded not so much by the illegal immigrants but with their sympathizers? You don't see that in China, you don't see that in Japan, you don't see that in Mexico, you don't see that in Sweden, you don't see that in India, or Turkey. And, yes, all those countries deport illegal immigrants.
Imagine if you had police officers accosted when they try to make an arrest, or get interference, or get their cars rammed at by bystanders. If all communities cooperated with ICE in carrying out lawful removals and there were no sanctuaries, rhetoric, etc., then yeah, likely it would be good for them to have cameras.
The longer I typed in that sentence the more convinced I am youre probably right.
>“When people talk about just one of these, privacy or safety, they’re prioritizing the wrong thing, and what we have to prioritize as a country is compromise,” Langley said during a recent interview with Fox News. “How do we have our safety, and how do we balance privacy?”
This is about cameras in secure facilites, such as in a prison or jail. Those spaces should be subject to some form of public inspection but there's probably a good argument to not allow random cameras in.
Earlier this year various elected officials tried to perform exactly that kind of public inspection of ICE facilities and met a lot of resistance. I know that some subset of these were just publicity stunts, but despite that, the fact remains that the public needs to be aware of what detention in those facilities is like and if the DHS makes choices that result in random cameras being the only way to do that, then they should reap what they sow.
you're right. there's also an awful lot of very obvious good arguments for allowing recording and public access to recording, such as the incident where a prisoner was locked in a scalding shower until he was so badly burned that his skin "fell off at the touch" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Darren_Rainey). Like so many incidents of its kind, there was absolutely no hard evidence available to prove what happened and it ended up being yet another case where someone died horrifically and officially no one was found to have done anything wrong but several million dollars did change hands. If prison guards are torturing prisoners to death and getting away with it, the argument that they don't need surveillance needs to be a whole lot better than "probably good".
About as good of an argument as the prisoner who insists that cell searches for contraband must be announced a day before the search. Do you think the people running the jail would go for that?
smartwatches are also just one or two generations away from having cameras
Or did you mean "Bad from the perspective of the officers"? Which, uh, sure fine, but I don't really care what the officers working ICE concentration camps where dozens of people have died and the survivors live in deplorable conditions that absolutely violate the constitution's prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishment" think.
the privacy of prisoners maybe. A prison cell is not a public place (nor the hallways either) so there is an actual expectation of privacy there.
1. It is owned by the public. The public has a right to know how its tax dollars are being spent.
2. Certainly there is no expectations of privacy in a jail cell, as the jail administrators and guards can enter at any time.
- prevent or more likely perform but withhold and deny existence of recordings of policing
- give police total access to "private" recordings
is ludicrous.
Meta is literally a surveillance company which as a side hustle addicts people to feeds which destroy their mental health and social relationships and sense of self worth, in service of keepting them docile, consuming, and politically steered.