Smart Glasses: Your privacy at stake
With the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence technologies and their rapid development, today we shed light on some of the concerns associated with such technologies regarding privacy violations. We focus on modern smart glasses equipped with the ability to capture images and record secretly.
How can laws be enacted to punish those who misuse them? And how can we protect those who do not use them?
Smart glasses can indeed infringe on the privacy of others, and the issue goes beyond your personal use of this advanced technology.
Researchers at Cornell University’s Computing and Information Security in the United States have warned about modern smart glasses that violate individuals’ privacy, especially as it has become difficult to distinguish them from regular glasses.
The study revealed that smart glasses can create a significant power imbalance between those who possess them and those who do not. This is due to their ability to secretly record conversations and create fake images of people without their knowledge.
Most of the research related to augmented reality glasses has focused on the user experience and analyzed the reactions of both users and non-users. The content captured by their glasses, whether photos or videos, was shared. Users of the glasses expressed satisfaction with the experience, unlike non-users who expressed discomfort with the glasses’ recording of their appearance without consent.
The study concluded that companies manufacturing such glasses or similar technologies should incorporate display screens and light indicators in the design of smart glasses to make it clear to anyone close to the wearer that they are using such glasses. Additionally, critics of the technology emphasize the need to enforce existing laws in many countries that allow those who are unknowingly recorded to sue the glasses wearer or even the manufacturing company in certain cases.
Fadi Mikhail, an expert in information security and technology, believes that this type of glasses blurs the line between augmented reality and regular glasses.
The glasses released by Apple are considered large glasses designed for home and office use, unlike the newer glasses that closely resemble regular glasses and are difficult to distinguish between them. Technology is evolving, and chips are getting smaller, so it is possible to reduce the size of the glasses and incorporate chips in a way that they are not visible to the naked eye.
These glasses can contain cameras and microphones to serve the wearer, allowing them to see and hear. However, at the same time, we are talking about privacy violations.
Plans are now being developed for these glasses to work on ways to protect the privacy of users. There is a hypothesis that there could be a light indicator that signals when the glasses wearer is recording.
Another hypothesis suggests that the glasses may have a small screen that displays what the wearer sees through the glasses. Because of augmented reality, the wearer can see the other person differently.
It is better to establish laws before introducing the product to the market. Currently, in the European Union, we can see the Electronic Market Act, which has banned some applications from being used in the European Union to this day.
