privacy
Bug turns one of the biggest fears about Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses into reality
The bug is fixed, but privacy concerns remain.
Credit:
Meta
Credit:
Meta
Some Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses were recording people’s conversations without the wearer knowing. The recordings occurred without users saying the prompt phrase (“Hey, Meta”), in a bug that Meta says has been fixed.
This week, some users reported online that their Ray-Ban Metas were recording without their consent. A person going by Kindly-Audience-137 on Reddit, for example, said this happened to them across three Meta Ray-Bans and that they had the “Respond without Hey Meta” setting turned off. The person said the Meta AI app “saves audio recordings and text transcripts of these conversations in my conversation history.”
“I believe this deserves a serious technical investigation. Customers should not have to wonder whether their private conversations are being captured when they have not intentionally activated their glasses’ AI assistant,” the Reddit user said.
Android Authority reported the discussions on Tuesday. Later that day it published a response from Meta that read:
“This issue has been resolved. People can manage, review, and delete voice logs of their interactions with Meta AI via settings at any time.”
Although Meta’s brief message suggests that the bug is fixed, the broader privacy problem remains.
Unanswered questions
Meta hasn’t said what caused the Ray-Ban Metas to record people without user consent. Reddit user Kindly-Audience-137 said they “first noticed this behavior after a recent firmware update,” but Meta hasn’t confirmed if a faulty update caused the bug.
We also don’t know how many Meta smart glasses were affected. There are a few reports online, but Android Authority said it was unable to replicate the problem before Meta said it fixed it.
Ars Technica sent Meta a message asking what it’s doing to prevent future bugs like this from happening again and how many devices were affected. We’ll update this article if we hear back.
Even a handful of affected devices is cause for concern, though.
Before reports of this bug, privacy advocates had already expressed widespread concerns about Meta’s smart glasses, as well as those from other vendors. Beyond the fear that naturally accompanies the release of new technology that features a microphone and camera, Meta’s glasses pushed the boundaries of privacy further with their more inconspicuous look, prompting concern about how easy it could be for someone to secretly record another person.
Meta has previously tried to assuage concerns by pointing to the fact that its glasses light up when recording audio or video. But the bug this week shows that even with this light activated, it’s possible for the smart glasses to record inadvertently.
Meta’s brief statement does little to alleviate those worries. Meanwhile, the bug lends some credence to reports and trepidation that Ray-Ban Metas are creating recordings without subjects’ knowledge.
Fears brought to life
Meta has been steadfast in its push for gadgets that put microphones and cameras in people’s homes and on their faces, while battling fears that the devices could be used for nonconsensual recordings.
Contractors for Sama, a data annotation company headquartered in Kenya, say they have viewed footage that was shot by Ray-Ban Metas, seemingly without the wearer or other people in the video knowing. A report by Swedish journalists earlier this year interviewed over 30 Sama workers and pointed to a “stream of privacy-sensitive data that is fed straight into the tech giant’s systems,” per a machine translation, resulting in workers viewing private activities, like a glasses owner’s partner coming out of a bathroom naked.
“Meta has that type of content in its databases. People can record themselves in the wrong way and not even know what they are recording,” the report quoted an anonymous Sama employee as saying.
In the US, the report led to a lawsuit seeking class action certification [PDF] and an investigation from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
In August, Meta updated its smart glasses so that they won’t record if the glasses’ indicator light is covered up. Some potential privacy violations using Ray-Ban Metas, however, hinge on a bad human actor. But this most recent glitch, as well as the reports from the Sama workers, highlights the possibility for well-meaning users to inadvertently record stuff, too.
The privacy shortcomings of Ray-Ban Meta and other smart glasses have raised concerns about being clandestinely recorded in public and about the creation of apps for detecting the smart glasses. The privacy concerns have also led to proposed legislation, including in Norway, which is considering a temporary ban.
Glasses like Ray-Ban Metas have the potential to intentionally or unintentionally violate people’s privacy, whether through technical problems, sharing data without user consent, or poor design. Without further constraints, one of the biggest drawbacks to devices like Ray-Ban Metas will continue to be the fear of nonconsensual recording, a fear that this week’s bug turned into a reality.
