Privacy Researchers Raise Concerns About Facebook Augmented Reality Glasses

This week, a team of UK privacy researchers published a paper detailing their concerns about Facebook’s planned augmented reality (AR) glasses that are set to include a built-in smart camera and microphone. According to these experts, this technology poses a massive ethical problem, as people interacting with its users have no way of opting out of being recorded.

“Facebook is on the precipice of deploying multiple thousands of pairs of augmented reality glasses—all capable of recording video and audio of others in the commons—yet is incapable of providing adequate means for those other people to opt out, without being recorded in the process,” the researchers wrote.

The team also analyzed Facebook’s privacy principles and found that its AR technology fails to live up to the company’s own standards.

“The research in this paper shows that there is a glaring disparity between what companies say they are doing and what they are,” they wrote. “When examined, this is found to be lacking at best, and damaging at worst.”

It’s not a surprise that privacy experts would be concerned about this technology. However, Facebook seems to be plowing ahead with the planned tech anyway. It will be interesting to see if users — who already don’t trust the company — pick up the product or reject it entirely.




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