Meta quietly added facial recognition code to its smart glasses app, but says it's only exploring the technology
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| Just "exploring." Credit: SOPA/Getty images |
Meta has quietly added facial recognition tech for its smart glasses to its Meta AI app.
A Wired investigation discovered that the code has been added to Meta's AI app over "multiple updates this year." The feature is internally called NameTag, and it can reportedly identity people captured by the camera on Meta's smart glasses, including Ray-Bans and Oakleys, as well as alert the wearer when it recognizes someone.
The fact that Meta is looking into this is not new; The New York Times wrote about it last year, with Meta later commenting that it would take a "very thoughtful approach" if it ever were to release something like that.
SEE ALSO:Meta addresses problematic feeds with global Teen Accounts
And while the feature did not, in fact, roll out out to users, the fact that Meta has reportedly added some of the code need for it to run into Meta AI, an app distributed to tens of millions of users, is concerning. The groundwork for the feature includes three AI models – one which detects people's face them, one which crops them, and one which encodes them into biometric data — and all three already reside on the phones of people who have the Meta AI app installed.
Two security researchers who reviewed Wired's findings both noted that the app is nearly ready to go.
A Meta spokesperson reiterated to the publisher that the company is merely "exploring" such a feature, and that these findings are "evidence of that exploration."
"Nothing has shipped to consumers and no final decision has been made on what to do here, if anything. If we do decide to roll something out, we will take a thoughtful approach and do so with full transparency. One decision we can be clear about—we are not building a central face database," said the spokesperson.
Meta has stirred up trouble with facial recognition tech before, most notably when it paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines due to collecting people's biometric data without prior consent, thus violating privacy laws. The matter was made worse when it was discovered that the facial recognition startup Clearview AI scraped billions of photos from Facebook to build an identity-matching database which was sold to third parties.
The news comes just one month after 70 organizations, including the ACLU and Fight for the Future, sent a letter to Meta, urging the company to "immediately halt and publicly disavow" any plans to add facial recognition to its smart glasses.
Topics Meta
Yep, they'll be literal spyglasses and apparently no one can opt out, and anything the bozos wearing them see will be transmitted to the center in Africa for dissection and dissemination, despite what Zuck says.
ReplyDeleteIncluding, according to one anecdote, your credit card information because your waiter wants to be an auteur.
It's not for users, its to sell to the government.
ReplyDeleteDing ding ding!
Deletebasically meta has spyware
ReplyDeleteOpt in or opt out options should, rightfully, be provided for the viewed, not the viewers. Let's see you work that out, Meta.
ReplyDeleteTime for EU countries to intervene and ban facial recognition without the explicit, case-by-case approval of the victim...
ReplyDeleteFacebook Meta can't seem to learn from its experiences and having to pay out class action settlements.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-secures-14-billion-settlement-meta-over-its-unauthorized-capture
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/technology/facebook-privacy-lawsuit-earnings.html
I see no genuine use here. The last thing I want to see in a crowd is everyone's name tag. If I'm looking at someone's face I either already know them or I should introduce myself and get to know them. If I'm meeting someone in a crowd it's still easier to communicate directly than "go stand in the crowd and let my glasses find you." Our brains are designed to notice 'pop ups' to alert us for danger. Anyone using smart glasses will be incapable of paying attention to their surroundings. It's not about will power it's about biology and the tech people know all too well how to take and keep your attention against your will.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the downside of facial recognition in the glasses? I think it will need to have user level approvals to see my profile public or private to certain audiences like a profile on line. There is always the potential of misuse.
ReplyDeleteFrom the article, ’… privacy advocates argue will give anyone from stalkers to immigration agents easy access to a dangerous technology.’
DeleteIf you think Meta will let users control it, I have an infinitely long bridge to sell to you.
DeleteYup
DeleteSo, today’s lesson: the next time you get caught doing something sneaky, underhanded, and invasive, disregard all criticism and characterize your actions as “thoughtful”. Fuck Meta and Zuck.
ReplyDeleteThis very definitely violates the Illinois Biometric privacy Act & will just get Meta into even more trouble in the state.
ReplyDeleteZuckerberg must have the country's most incompetent lawyers working for him if they haven't told him that!
Who is this technology helping? People who are forgetting the faces of their own family and friends?
ReplyDeleteCan this technology be expanded to do nefarious stuff? Can this be stopped?
For convenience, I tried one of those smartwatches. It kept disconnecting from my phone, which was annoying. Since I holster my phone on my belt, rather than stuffing it in a pocket, I found I could unholster it and look at it nearly as quickly as I could look at the watch, so I quit wearing the watch.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see smart glasses that can let me establish a phone call, listen to audio, and get heads up displays on verbal request. I neither need nor want a camera on the glasses. Basically, I want what the watch should have been on my face.
Meta is about to be reminded what a class action suit can do. All it takes is one person crossing paths with someone wearing a pair of Meta glasses to have their privacy extremely violated with no consent biometric scanning.
ReplyDeleteSo basically, they create these dangerous and easily misused systems, and then claim "it's okay because we haven't decided to activate them yet!" like building a nuke is okay so long as you don't use it...
ReplyDeleteExtremely invasive. Should be illegal. What about my right to privacy? Becoming a world I want nothing to do with.
ReplyDeleteI'm so excited for the robots to take over.
ReplyDeleteeasy solution don't get it but people so gadget craze it won't happen
ReplyDeleteMeta has been mass-surveilling since pandemic (it used its surveillance Pre pandemic as well, but not on large scale), many EU policy makers have fined them heavily for the same, many privacy related NGOs have and are dragging Meta in the courts in EU. Hacktivists have always been raising voices against Meta’s suspicious activities. It is using all the surveillance data to train its proprietary products as per many OSINT reports, idk? What else did you expect out of that 💩 platform? 🤷🏻♂️
ReplyDeleteWho are the geniuses wandering around with spyware on their eyes?
ReplyDeleteThe stupid thing about this is that I would love for facial recognition in smart glasses that could bring up a quick blurb for people so I can remember names and what not. The problem is that Meta is keeping this data to track people for profit and other nefarious purposes.
ReplyDeleteAh yes lets outsource our entire memory and thought to a product the definitely isnt scraping all data it can.
DeleteThis is the laziest thing I’ve read today
Delete
DeleteTrading convenience for privacy episode 3176.
No it’s not a nice feature who the fuck cares you can ask people their names again nobody will die. But give that power to cops in a fascist government, different story. If it’s a cheap product any agent can buy it bypasses the hoops such a tool would require to be used officially
Has anyone here read Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams? I forgot if she was a shareholder or an executive but she (apparently) aired out a lot of Facebook/Meta’s dirty laundry. I personally haven’t read it and go back and forth on whether or not I want to.
ReplyDeleteI have. She was head of global affairs. I had an incredibly low opinion of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook before but hoo boy, it’s way worse than I thought. It’s a good read, too.
Deleteno, but just looked it up. thanks for sharing the knowledge 🙏🏼
DeleteStop. Using. Meta. Products.
ReplyDeleteThese absolute lazy braindead sheep think the world will end if they stop posting to IG or have to move the group chat from WhatsApp to telegram. It’s absurd. Meta could be gone in a year if people weren’t such cucks.
Signal
DeleteMovin from whatsapp to telegram isn't perticularly better tho. I mean all these apps can be compromised, but at least use signal as non meta/russia alternative
Delete
DeleteSignal (or maybe a hardened fork eg Molly) is better. I'd also throw a hat in for the paid app Threema, always felt they were kind of like the Swiss bank of encrypted messaging. They go a long way to prove and develop security, with semi-regular independent academic vetting of their code.
The main difference between Signal and Threema is whether you prefer a product tied to the legal framework of the US or the legal framework of Switzerland. Neither are perfect.
I used to think Matrix was a good alternative, but apparently that's tied to the legal framework of Israel (and maybe worse, who knows).
Telegram is both tied to the legal framework and embedded with the state of Russia, much like WeChat is embedded with the state of China.
Discord (Or Stoat?)
DeleteYou mean the app which leaked the ID photos and data they weren't supposed to even keep?
DeleteAtm signal is fine imo. Discord can be overwhelming for regular ppl
DeleteProblem is no one uses Signal. Network effects are against you there, as as soon as you switch to it you lose most of your contacts unless you keep relying on the other messaging options. In which case Signal just becomes a pointless add-on.
DeleteMaybe in your place but where I live a lot of ppl have changed to signal in past few years. A lot of employers prohibit the use of whatsapp fe, so when looking for alternatives signal became more and more an option.
DeleteDiscord is not "safe" to use. A bunch of pedophiles, as well as domestic terrorists, psy op groups, etc. started using it so they were pretty much forced to setup desks for government agencies.
DeleteI mean I guess you can never expect the perverts to go away, but Discord made it too accessible so people who werent specifically looking for shit would stumble on it.
Cant forget the foreign government agents too. I remember in a Canadian discord some israeli bot would come in there to argue about Palestine. They'd go from broken ass english typed very slowly, to typing well over 100 words per minute in perfect english while citing shit from the early 1900s lol. LLMs are bad news for public forums, or even semi-private.
Stoat was the one I was thinking about.
DeleteYou have to be a very stupid person to buy/use a product from a company that is dedicated to data collection and mass espionage.
ReplyDeleteYet around 3 billion people around the world use facebook... What do you think may happen when people using it look at their phone screen?
DeleteYou know, that little circle at the top of your phone screen, facing you. Even the back ones may get accessed from time to time?
I trust the OS on my phone is making sure their app(s) don't access my camera or microphone without asking.
DeleteI would not trust an OS actually provided by Meta is doing the same (at least not for their own apps).
These days I don't trust any of them, but in the case of Meta, for me it's not a question of whether I trust them or not, I'm sure they're going to do things like that one way or another.
DeleteIf the Wired link does not work for you:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.androidauthority.com/meta-smart-glasses-face-recognition-code-in-app-3674720/
Honestly the Meta glasses seem pretty amazing considering their price point. They've done an amazing job. The only reason I don't already own a pair is because of who's producing them.
ReplyDeleteI let go on Facebook a long time ago and I'm not going back.
I'm not necessarily for it, but Apple has it, and Australia (assume other countries too) are enforcing digital Age ID for +18 digital industries amongst other ways to digitally ID someone, eg credit card.
ReplyDeleteIt's 2026 and face ID is in the realm of normal.
Both age verification and faceID are for the user’s own face and are optional and with your consent. If you chose to agree to those terms, that’s fine.
DeleteThis is scanning other people’s faces without their consent. The two are not remotely the same.
A user scanning their own face on a system where the biometric data is encrypted on a specific chip (Apple’s Secure Enclave) stored locally, only on device versus one to scan non-users’s faces and store them possibly in the cloud are two very very different things.
DeleteRead more: https://cnews.link/meta-smart-glasses-facial-recognition-code-deleted-8/
ReplyDeleteHahaha yeah they are just going to quietly add it back later on.
ReplyDeleteThe code has been moved. The correct phrase is moved.
ReplyDeletei had instagram crash hard recently and throw some "place your face in the shown area" popup. freaked me out
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to your biometric data is safe, meta just breaching your privacy for fun at this point.
ReplyDeleteIts ok as long as it's just everyone else and not you /s
DeleteThe article is paywalled, but if this was something that stayed entirely on the phone (not uploaded to Meta), it could be valuable to people with disabilities. I have a disability where I have difficulty recognizing faces of people I know if it’s in a different context/location. They might look familiar to me, but I’m not sure where. Alternatively, I might think they look similar to a person I know, but I’m never confident enough to be sure. I’ll just make eye contact and hope they recognize me.
ReplyDeleteIn one situation, I was hesitant to pick up my daughter from daycare because she wasn’t wearing clothes I recognized. I had to look at her for 15-20 seconds before I was sure.
So the feature could be awesome, but you know it’s not private if Meta is involved.
Anytime a website has pop up crap and you want to read it , try https://www.textise.net/.
Deletehttps://www.textise.net/showText.aspx?strURL=https%253A//www.wired.com/story/meta-smart-glasses-face-recognition-nametag-connections/#main-content
Was your daughter covered from head to toe or something? I can’t imagine the situation having picked up my kid every day for 9 years.
DeleteWell, none of us can. I believe it’s called Prosopagnosia. They often compensate by using context, such as clothing, hairstyle voice gate, body shape, routine, location, etc. And yes, without being skeptical of the person that originally posted that reply, I have difficulty imagining this as well.
DeleteYep. I couldn't remember the word. Mine's not severe, but definitely there. I typically rely on memorizing specific facial features to fall back on. I have fraternal twins. If I look at their newborn pictures I can tell them apart because one had a chubbier face, or one had little fuzzy "sideburns" baby hair.
DeleteHowever, if you gave me a bunch of baby photos and told to identify mine, I might not be able to do it.
Weird, right? gave the name of the disorder (I forgot what it was called and was too busy to look it up). It’s actually easier for me to recognize actors on TV/movies by the sound of their voice rather than their face.
DeleteOuch, now they have all the data with faces to go with it. And ofc the where and how irl
ReplyDeleteI hate this but also what's the point of fighting it? I could do the same with a raspberry pi and a small esp camera. I'm more okay with it being local than being sent to the cloud for processing.
ReplyDeleteDystopia is now
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly the direction I don't want smart glasses to go. I like wearable tech when it helps me access information, notifications, translations, notes, etc. The moment companies start treating every person around me as data to be identified and analyzed, it crosses a line. Honestly, I wish more companies focused on making smart glasses useful without collecting information about everyone nearby. That's one reason I've found products like even g2 interesting. The focus seems to be more on giving the wearer useful information rather than figuring out who everyone else is. Smart glasses shouldn't require other people to give up their privacy just so the wearer gets a new feature.
ReplyDeleteOne of the few things I miss about facebook is being able to go remind myself of someone's name when I'm in one of those situations where I've met someone a few too many times and feel embarrassed that I still don't know their name and don't want to ask. This could be really useful.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, it could also be super creepy. Given its from zuck, it'll probably be that.
Surprised anyone still uses Facebook
ReplyDeleteCan I just ask: do we really need meta? What would the problem be with using government to simply shut it down, arrest the board/executives, confiscate its assets, and redistribute them to the populace which it preys upon? Is it really moral to protect corporations that have a purely destructive influence on our society? Why should they have any rights, when they don't respect the rights of their own customers, much less people who just happen to be walking down the same street?
ReplyDeleteOf course we all know that meta is an arm of the government, and therefore none of that can ever occur, but just as a thought exercise why not?
https://imgur.com/a/VMiBFwx
ReplyDeleteWho's shocked? Oh wait, nobody. Why anyone would trust Meta much less give it that much access, is beyond me
ReplyDeleteGetting tired of fuckerberg.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly why journalism is so essential and why it’s still important to call out these big companies even when it feels like they can’t be stopped. Thank you to WIRED, going to go sub to them now
ReplyDeleteSerious question, but since when do any of you people care about privacy? Back when Edward Snowden blew the whistle regarding tech companies and alphabet agencies sharing citizens personal information everyone acted like they didn't care or collectively shrugged because they assumed their info was all already known anyways, nobody made any efforts to stop using compromised social media, nobody started using encryption, nobody made the slightest effort to divorce themselves from companies known to engage in data brokerage but now almost twenty years after the fact suddenly you act like you care about surveillance?
ReplyDeleteAt least things like smart glasses have some potential for helping people with Prosopagnosia, ADHD, blindness and poor vision in their daily lives but people would rather clutch their pearls and complain about a ship that sailed before many of you were even born.
Suuuuuure, Jan.
ReplyDeleteThere’s a special type of person who would wear such a thing….
ReplyDeleteI'm sure they'll try to sneak it back in.
ReplyDeleteYeah, just don’t look over there
ReplyDeletePoor Meta hung out to dry. They were hoping to surprise everyone with huge profits.
ReplyDeleteFaceBase: A global face database coming to a data center near you
ReplyDeleteThe original Pokémon game has missingno because removing the code made the game inoperable. This wasnt deleted, just softlocked.
ReplyDeleteSuckerborg's desperation is palpable. He's irked, rankled and rubbed raw by the knowledge that his peers look down on him for still running the same sordid little data scraping operation he stole in his early 20's. Every attempt he makes to innovate out of the box ends in multi-Billion dollar disaster and here he is, U-turning on his latest abomination: stalker sunnies. I'm sure the dozens of heavy breathing perverts eagerly awaiting this rollout will be disappointed but just think of the lawsuits Meta has dodged here.
ReplyDeleteI am 99.997% thrilled about that, but have been suffering with the inability to recognize faces my entire life. It would be absolutely lovely if I could have (as a private feature) a catalog of everyone I meet daily, so that the 14th time I've met someone I don't introduce myself again, or worse, walk past my best friend and not say hello. (Yes, I have even missed recognizing myself in a photo once. That nearly broke my brain).
ReplyDeleteShame it all has to turn into tracking and data harvesting. These products could be life-changing in the right hands.
Not buying that shit and if they get common im back to ffp2s
ReplyDelete"the tech giant noted that the ethically-fraught feature should ideally be launched "during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns."
ReplyDeleteFucking scumbags
It’s never deleted. Enterprises that do this sort of thing should be penalised more than 100 percent of their revenue.
ReplyDeleteUntil the cost is prohibitively high companies will keep testing the boundaries of this stalker behaviour
Yep, every illegal dealing needs to 1) be completely unprofitable, and 2) actually hurt.
ReplyDeleteWithout 1, then its just the cost of doing business. Without 2, its a wash and there's no harm testing the system for holes.
Oh. A mistake, was it?
ReplyDeleteOr so they say…
ReplyDeleteIt is crazy how they got caught. They built facial recognition into the smart glasses app while claiming they were not doing it, then panicked and deleted the code the second the report dropped. Turning regular people into walking surveillance cameras is terrifying, so I am glad they got called out before it went live.
ReplyDeleteI guarantee Palantir with backing from Ellison will want to try and get that database
ReplyDelete50 million people have a companion app for Meta’s smart glasses on their phone?
ReplyDeletegooner goggles
ReplyDelete*removes from public use
ReplyDeleteFixed your headline
Sure they did.
ReplyDeleteThe PimEyes facial recognition database already contains over 900 million faces scraped from public sources. Meta removing their feature doesn't eliminate the privacy risk, just shifts it to less regulated platforms.
ReplyDeleteAre we sure it wasn't just commented out?
ReplyDeleteOnly backtracking because they caught red-handed. Sorry fuckers.
ReplyDeleteIt'll happen, they are just ahead of the curve
ReplyDeleteman... if this went public, there would be quite the class action lawsuit. imagine getting cataloged in their data recognition system because someone wearing the glasses randomly looked at you in public. meta is getting worse by the day.
ReplyDeleteYeah Zuck, sure you did.
ReplyDeleteOh so now we believe them?
ReplyDeletehaha sure it did 😉
ReplyDeleteSneaky fucks
ReplyDeleteIt's a Napster for your personal information. Why would you ever sign up for any of their apps let alone wear a camera tied to one? Are we that stupid?
ReplyDeleteSuuuuuuurre they did.
ReplyDeleteYea, OK, surrrre, Mark.
ReplyDelete"Deletes"
ReplyDeleteI don't believe them, but then again I don't believe anything from that bunch of assholes at Meta.
Bet it’s still enabled on the ones the Frozen Pork are rocking.
ReplyDeleteNot enough. Actually, removing the setting just sounds like hiding it from the people who could turn it off.
ReplyDeleteAdd physical shutters to the lenses. For existing glasses, offer for free a cover thst sits on thr glasses and blocks the cameras.
Then, hire some people to actually design a smart glass system not dependent on cameras. Take inspiration from the google glass unofficial AOSP image.
the tech giant noted that the ethically-fraught feature should ideally be launched "during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns."
ReplyDeleteJust a reminder.
Let's be clear. They only did so because they got caught
ReplyDeleteSure they did
ReplyDeleteCurses! Foiled again!
ReplyDeleteRegardless of whether Meta was working on this or not, somebody will add this feature to their own glasses manufactured by Meta or other. Meta refusing to release it doesn’t make it go away, it just gives people a false sense of safety.
ReplyDeleteAnd, even if the government bans things like this, will all world governments? Will all tinkerers respect the laws? lol. No.
It only takes one person to have a customizable smart glasses platform manufactured in China, and you’re going to see some seriously creepy shit. It’s not going away. The only way to defend yourself from it is to have the same capabilities.
Ludicrous. The only way to combat mass privacy violations by my neighbors is to violate their privacy in return? That makes no sense. The answer is common sense regulation — something we used to do in this country.
DeleteThose days are gone
DeleteYeah, and can be brought back just as easily when you all stop falling for it
Deletelol. Regulation only works for those that follow the law. We can ensure law abiding behavior, by removing privacy.
DeleteSo treat everyone like criminals because you don’t want to — checks notes — enforce the law?! That’s your argument?
Delete
DeleteHow exactly do you enforce the law? I can 3D print my own spy glasses and write the software myself. Does law enforcement then grab them off of my face and reverse engineer them to see if I have some kind of facial biometric matching going on? Do they impound and search my devices to ensure I’m not breaking a nearly unenforceable law?
It’s nearly unenforceable to restrict this kind of behavior. It’s only punishable after the fact and only in rare circumstance… unless, major privacy violations.
How would you keep this out of the hands of everyone capable?
My solution is to give it to everyone. Faces are public data.
If you are caught doing illegal things with your illegal glasses you will be thrown in jail. That’s the most basic way laws work. You are literally walking around with the evidence of your crime on your face.
DeleteHow do you catch anybody… for the breaking the law of having glasses with illegal capabilities?
DeleteIt’s like tuning a car for performance and violating emissions laws. Yes, it’s illegal. Sure, you’ll get in trouble if you get caught. But who in the hell is pulling people over and randomly applying automotive emissions tests? Nobody. So, the overwhelming majority of people can go about their day with an illegally modified car and it’s unlikely that they’ll ever be caught.
It’ll be the same with the glasses. People will only be caught using them after some horrendous crime has already taken place, and law enforcement may never be able to prove that they had biometric search capability. Even still, the punishment will be far less than the punishment for the horrendous crime.
At least, that’s what they said.
ReplyDeleteThey’ll call it something else, mask variables and redeploy it later.
ReplyDeleteI somehow suspect all they are doing is removing it from the user interface, but it'll still do it on the back end for their tracking stuff.
ReplyDeleteThey’ll quietly install it again when the dust settles.
ReplyDeleteNext they should delete the requirement for a selfie to get on Facebook. Any bets?
ReplyDelete"Oh shit they caught us!" Deletes.
ReplyDeleteAssuming it stays deleted, how much do y’all think WIRED’s article flushed down the Meta toilet?
ReplyDeleteSure they did.
ReplyDeleteDeleted?
ReplyDeleteMore like hidden until a later time
No they didn’t.
ReplyDeleteThey just hid the feature.
Scumbag company with a scumbag agenda. Meta is a bad actor on the scene, that has been obvious even before the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal
No matter how you rebrand the company, change your look, no matter what private island you go hide on - your character is obvious, Mark.
Thank you wired!
ReplyDeleteSo they say? Was there a regulator standing over the engineers shoulder and an auditor nearby to examine their infrastructure to make sure they actually did?
ReplyDeleteOr should this be rephrased to "Meta claims Face-Recognition system has been deleted following getting caught with their pants down."
Yeah, sure it did.
ReplyDeleteNow to ban Neuralink from integrating Ai technology.
ReplyDeleteSo we're basically living Black Mirror episodes.
ReplyDeleteCool cool.
Someone watched those and thought THAT'S A GREAT IDEA.
Deletethat someone, probably zuck
DeleteThe show got depressing after like 2 episodes
DeleteI'm faceblind and would love love love LOVE a nametag like feature inside smartglasses.
ReplyDeleteGood on WIRED for the reporting that forced Meta’s hand, but let’s be real, they didn’t “delete” the tech, they just turned it off in the app for now. Face recognition isn’t going away, it’s too valuable for their advertising and future AR ambitions. Expect it to quietly reappear with better “opt-in” language or in a different form once the heat dies down.
ReplyDeleteOh it will be back as an update later. Maybe with the next face filter or something.
ReplyDeleteIt is just software. They can flip it back on anytime they choose.
ReplyDeleteNeed an account to read it if I refuse cookies. Any summary-havers?
ReplyDelete*Meta removed an unreleased face-recognition system, NameTag, from its Meta AI app after WIRED reported its integration. The system, designed to convert faces captured by smart glasses into biometric signatures, was never publicly enabled. Despite Meta’s claims that the feature did not exist, the latest version of the app removes all traces of the system.*
DeleteIn unrelated news, Zuckerberg to buy Wired magazine....
ReplyDeleteCan Meta go back to 300? It’s such a shit company all around.
ReplyDeleteit’s in the hardware - this is like “meta allow you to remove pre-installed facebook from the phone you bought”
ReplyDeleteit doesn’t mean anything
Meta is the type of company that can create the cure for cancer and people still will not fuck with them because they are Meta. Idk why they are making this and who is buying it. But it can’t be a line item on the income statement that is worth justifying.
ReplyDeleteUnreal that behavior resembling intrusive surveillance can be treated as criminal when done by an individual, yet when does something similar through technology and data harvesting, it's celebrated as innovation and becomes a multibillion-dollar gadget. The contrast raises questions about privacy, ethics, and accountability, of which none of these said companies care about.
ReplyDeleteYeah, right. They’ll just wait for this attention to die down and it’ll be quietly added back.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how much of a failure Zuckerberg has been since Facebook. Sure I give him credit, but he screwed over his business partner, and while it was a good idea, it wasn't original. It just happened to win. He's spent the last, I'll say 16 years, ruining facebook. Seriously, I think it was maybe last tolerable in 2012. So I'll walk that back to 14 years.
But it's been awful. Every idea he's had since Facebook has been bad. Every management decision he's made has been bad. Making the feed full of ads? Terrible. Making the feed full of suggested posts? Terrible. Allowing people to impersonate companies and others? Terrible. Making a temu knockoff of something Playstation did over a decade ago (Playstation Home)? Laughable. Repeatedly violating privacy rights? No qualms. He's a failure and ruining society.
And no i'm not just saying this- but one thing that stupid movie got right is he's an absolute bad human being. Remember facebook was originally meant to rate girls' looks. I can be a cynical shrugger, but that's still eye opening to me.
Yes facebook was cool up until maybe... 2009? Some might even argue after it went beyond @.edu email addresses, it was done. But it definitely turned into slop brain rot some time in the early 2010s.
Zuck is a poster child for the banality of evil.
ReplyDeleteSuuuuuuure they did.
ReplyDeleteThis implies the elite actually still care about bad press and negative public sentiment. That being said this isn't acrually a win for people because authorities will have access to the tech and use it to oppress us regardless of it being taken out of retail devices. I'm of the opinion either everyone has the tech or no one does. We should probably be moving toward masking like covid to protect our identities.
ReplyDeleteWHY IS ANYONE BUYING THESE PRODUCTS. Enjoy having some stranger look at your dick if you ever look down to shake it at a urinal I guess.
ReplyDeleteFacebook and the bottom feeder that is zuck will always opt to do the worst things possible to invade peoples privacy if it means he can collect more data to monetize. Absolute scum, and a shitty company where employees always work in fear of being laid off. Has to be mentally exhausting.
ReplyDeleteFrom Flock to Meta, tech weirdos want to make stalking a subscription service for whoever has the funds to spend, and a target to stalk
ReplyDelete“Move Fast and Break Society”
ReplyDeleteIt will still use the face recognition system they just won’t tell us about it anymore, then in a couple years someone will show it’s still being used then they’ll tell us “we removed it again” and then that’ll loop for a few years without it ever actually being taken off the devices. Classic Facebook.
ReplyDeleteWas this app in the glasses or is it server side? They might delete it from the app, but once it gets to their servers, it's their data. I think it's in the terms of service, but who can make heads or tails of it?
ReplyDeletewe need more wired reports
ReplyDeleteZuckerberg: Quick delete the evidence before subpoena.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThey are going to use people as part of the giant surveillance system for data fusion centers.
You don’t even have to be informed. They can just remotely turn it on.
There is a large movement going on right now and it looks like anyone who isn’t rich is going to suffer and many are going to die
These glasses were designed for creeps
ReplyDeleteAnd also designed BY creeps!
DeleteThey got caught, but it's still coming down the line.
ReplyDeleteSuuuuuuuuuure
ReplyDeleteDon’t be fooled into thinking this… they absolutely will sneak it back in at some point and the tech savvy users will be able to make it active. Meta is evil and they’ll do everything to undermine your privacy because they don’t care.
ReplyDeleteETA on META acquiring Wired and destroying it?
ReplyDeleteSure they did…
ReplyDeleteTheyre just going to hide it better now :/
ReplyDeleteThe fact that they axed the code almost immediately indicates that was not for consumer productivity nor situational awareness.
ReplyDeleteShut them down
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone fucking buy these?
ReplyDeleteI'm starting to think this Meta company isn't very ethical.
ReplyDeleteIt will be put back with a stealthy update
ReplyDeleteSure they did.
ReplyDeleteSure they did.
ReplyDeleteThey say that publicly, but, do we really know?
ReplyDeleteSome dude I work with has them. Says he records mormal videos with them. There is no way to tell they are recording. I told him he was a pervert. They should be bright orange with a blinking light. Any dude who wears these things without that has nefarious ideas on his mind. Any doubt? How many women use these things? These men are all trying to film you without you knowing. There is no other reason.
ReplyDeleteIf you’re actually concerned, and not just rabble rousing, they in fact do have a bright LED light that illuminates when recording, and they will not record if the LED is obscured or blocked (unless someone goes into the software somehow and disables that function). They also do not record unless the wearer triggers it. And if the user in fact records you in a non public place, he would be violating your privacy just as if he were using a concealed phone camera or fob camera or button camera etc., none of which are precluded from consumer sales. It’s not perfect, and people violate the law and privacy often enough, regardless, but the fact is the glasses do include these sorts of privacy features, and it isn’t fair to pretend otherwise just for the sake of argument.
DeleteI don't get it. I make a point. You argue against it. I respond to bolster my point. Now nothing. Not even a "I suppose you might have a point". Nothing. What was the point of arguing with me? Are you just trying to justify the fact that you want these glasses? Did you really feel like defending perverts was a smart play? Are you a bot from Microsoft? A bot with diabetes?
DeleteThe glasses are a useful form factor for many use cases that benefit from interactive A/V with AI backing. They have safety features that can be deliberately disabled but void the warranty and violate the terms of service, and if used improperly, can lead to criminal prosecution. There are many ways to do similarly illegal and unintended bad behavior with other commonplace tech devices and when that happens there are penalties available, just as when glasses are abused. Given all this I fail to see a compelling basis for much of the knee jerk hostility and criticism directed at the smart glass form factor in particular, which again, offer many valuable use cases (vision impaired users for instances) notwithstanding the possibility bad people misuse them.
DeleteYou make a solid point for function. I simply disagree with the fact that they try to make them look like regular glasses. You want make them orange with a sign that says recording? Great. But again - the company who created these things wants to take all the information that the glasses create and use it to surveil people and add to their ever increasing dominance. If they could have no LED they would. You have no idea what happens to the footage created. They wanted to add a frigging facial recognition to their product! Yeah sure, the glasses on your face add to the ergonomic value. They make it super easy to record exactly what you are seeing. I'm not arguing about their convenience. I trying to make people understand that, just like Blink or Ring cameras, these things are designed to bolster the surveillance state, the police state, and fascism in general. So by all means, buy your little face camera and take all the shots you want. Just know that you are helping to tech bros with their dominance and to be perfectly clear:
DeleteTHERE IS NOT A SINGLE WOMAN ON THE PLANET THAT APPRECIATES YOU WEARING THIS PERVERT BIG BROTHER CAMERA ON YOUR FACE!!!
I totally won this argument!! Haha Suck it loser
DeleteNot mention special tape, drilling the led, and more. https://youtu.be/EaJSPeJmqis?si=7tTpQyAHib2xa-aH
DeleteWhat can I tell you? You think perverts can't cover up the light? The whole idea of them is that they are basically undetectable.
Deletehttps://youtube.com/shorts/RXQsBRQc7RU?si=v0y2Y7Bc6trjhr5V
The glasses don’t record when the light is obscured. Can that protection be jailbroken with enough effort in violation of the warranty and the terms of use? Apparently so. But again, how is that different than misusing other camera-equipped device? There’s nothing special about glasses as a form factor that should be different from other abused of technology … like hand held phones being used to film up skirts (a pretty rampant abuse in some countries). It’s all terrible but we don’t attack hand held phones as a form factor or assume the worst of anyone with a phone in their hand.
DeleteIts still there. I promise.
ReplyDeleteStill calling influencers who wear these "Glassholes".
ReplyDeleteThat’s been a thing since google glass, lol.
DeleteYou don't say. So glad you were here to remind us of this. Thanks.
DeleteWho pissed in your Cheerios, fucking grump…
Delete