Surprising no one, Meta’s new AI glasses are a privacy disaster.
I’m not sure what can be done here. This is a technology that will exist, whether we like it or not.
Meanwhile, there is a new Android app that detects when there are smart glasses nearby.
Rontea • March 18, 2026 9:26 AM
Apple Vision Pro privacy overview:
https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Apple_Vision_Pro_Privacy_Overview.pdf
DBA • March 18, 2026 10:17 AM
I live in a small town near the border: two Border Patrol stations within 30 miles. I just noticed a Flock ALPR camera on the highway and started paying attention, and now am noticing them all over town. This, combined with the Ray-Bans and other things, really makes me wonder how effective IR LED arrays would be against them.
mhyst • March 18, 2026 10:34 AM
Now Gemini and, I suppose, other AI agents as well, are requiring that we allow human reviewers access to our conversations.
They set an apparently secluded environment in which you can tell anything to the AI agent and then they demand access to what you just said. No matter if it is about health details, social disconfort ir your recent rants.
So to try to get some humor out of this nonsensical situation:
“In addition to the Vietnamese who listen to Alexa users’ farts, there are now Pakistanis who read about Gemini users’ hemorrhoids.”
The big brother is here to stay!
lurker • March 18, 2026 1:14 PM
Didn’t we already have this discussion some years ago with the original Google Glass? Not learning from history again …
AFAICT the App that detects nearby devices relies on finding a manufacturer ID. Sounds like a spoofer’s delight, and full of false positives when the manfr releases some other harmless device.
jbmartin6 • March 18, 2026 1:38 PM
I think putting some blame on the victim here is appropriate. You are wearing a camera that feeds to someone else’s computer around willingly, that’s a privacy nightmare regardless of what safeguards the other party may or may not have around the data.
Halo Komsija • March 18, 2026 6:13 PM
Paksu, gde god da se odselis, UVEK i SVE o tebi i tvojoj familiji biti ce poznato nama jer ti si se usudio da napravis FATALNU GRESKU!
Djubre jedno.
-MOSSAD
P.S.
Your days are numbered!
... • March 18, 2026 7:32 PM
Halo Komsija : No matter where you go, everything about you and your family will always be known to us because you dared to make a fatal mistake.
Mera budale je ono što oni veruju da je istina, a za šta se zna da je svima drugima lažno. Ne razumete da je ceo vaš svet lažan i da ste gori od budale. Vaša sudbina je odlučena vašom glupošću i to je vaš izbor.
Diego • March 18, 2026 8:25 PM
God forbid someone breaches meta and finds these archives of videos, showing people at their most vulnerable. Security is a pillar of society that’s growing exponentially with the development of more technology. Along with it, privacy in itself should be too. When is there a line drawn on what data corporations can take? Meta glasses being literal lens into peoples every day lives, in potentially their most vulnerable, should most definitely be kept away. I don’t think you’d want to train AI based on how I spend my time on the toilet wearing meta glasses for, I don’t know what reasons I’d wear them on the toilet. But if I did, what effect is there aside from my privacy being breached?
lurker • March 18, 2026 10:19 PM
@Diego
“time on the toilet wearing meta glasses”
Maybe that’s what Scott McNealy was thinking about when he famously said back in ’99, “You have no privavcy, get over it.” There’s a rambling clip[1] where he tries to explain what he means. Has anybody asked him lately if he still means it?
R.Cake • March 19, 2026 3:31 AM
@DBA (IR LED arrays “against” cameras) – no, this is not working. You could of course overload the camera image, trying to make your car undetectable. But side channel data is going to get you every time, especially in a small provincial town with a very limited number of roads to take:
“ah, there goes the guy with the brightly lit-up car that always takes path X, enters the surveilled zone near camera K-17 and leaves it near K-34, only to come back the same path in the afternoon”.
Also, the cops in your area are probably not stupid, and unusual lights on a car are fairly conspicuous. And even if you can hide how many people or who is in your car at a given time, they will probably still be able to tell the type of car, further narrowing down their search.
In general, the more promising way to be invisible is to look perfectly normal, “nothing to see here”.
R.Cake • March 19, 2026 3:33 AM
…and by the way, while the Balkan comments in this particular comments page come across as a bit annoying (and very likely also violate the moderation policy :D), they are a nice visual reminder that the internet is not the USA, nor vice versa.
Happy Hai • March 19, 2026 4:13 AM
@R.Cake,
sadly, not only here in the comments, but also in the government – they are everywhere.
Especially toxic and destructive when given authority/power as seen right here,
when they recklessly lie and coverup for one another.
Balkan creatures have no place in our government as they are some of the most corrupt on planet Earth.
Especially the one who comes here and signs off as “…” which is none other than your “Clive Robinson” who runs the IP Theft WebSite and works for the government.
These balkan muslims have no place in our civilized world.
See how they destroy a decent family with their lies.
They will hijack any government entity anywhere in the entire world, anywhere they go, they’ll infest every corner of this planet. They should be sent to middle east where they belong. Pure garbage.
drive.
.com
/drive
/folders/
1
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5
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u4
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07R
D6
B3
ai
08
qe
rH
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Just highlight copy/paste the link above
and you will see the horror that balkan human garbage created with their lies and coverups.
LeMarcus • March 19, 2026 4:21 PM
I need Meta Ray-Bans for work (I make content as a pick-up artist.) All y’all sound jealous. Don’t hate the playa — hate the game …
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
Rontea • March 18, 2026 9:19 AM
Privacy isn’t a luxury; it’s a core component of safety, freedom, and trust. The Meta Ray-Ban glasses controversy is a clear reminder that surveillance—whether for AI training or “feature improvement”—inevitably collects the most intimate aspects of our lives. Even with anonymization, faces, credit cards, and private moments leak through the seams. The lesson is eternal: once private data leaves your control, it’s no longer private. Systems that rely on human review or machine learning on personal footage will always put individuals at risk. Designing for privacy from the start isn’t optional—it’s the only way to preserve the freedoms we take for granted.