Last month, a joint investigation Two Swedish newspapers discovered that contractors in Kenya were watching personal videos recorded by users of Meta’s Ray Ban AI glasses.
The devices, which can be easily used to film others in public without their knowledge or consent, are facing a growing backlash online, with netizens calling them “distortion glasses”.
Now, Meta’s plan to add facial recognition technology to its hardware, as part of a new feature internally called “name tags,” has angered rights groups. As wired reportsis a coalition of over 70 civil liberties, domestic violence, LGBTQ+, labor and immigrant advocacy organizations signed a petitionCalled on Meta to cancel it completely.
in February new York Times first reported On facial recognition feature, which will let wearers identify people and get information about them through an AI assistant. An internal document seen by the newspaper revealed that Meta was planning to introduce the feature for the first time at a conference for the blind.
Ironically, given the destructive geopolitical environment, META expected rights groups to be too busy to take action.
“We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many of the civil society groups we would expect to attack us will have their resources focused on other concerns,” the document says. NYT.
But judging by the latest news, there are a lot of people lining up to protest the new feature. one in Public letter addressed to Meta CEO Mark ZuckerbergThe coalition called on the billionaire to “immediately halt and publicly disavow his plans to deploy facial recognition features on his Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses.”
The group specifically held Meta responsible for “taking advantage of this federal administration’s growing authoritarianism and disregard for the rule of law to introduce a product that will harm vulnerable people and further jeopardize our democracy,” describing the act as “despicable behavior, unbecoming of a company with such a prominent role in shaping our children, our society, and our future.”
The coalition is made up of 75 civil liberties groups, including the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, GLAAD, Mothers Against Media Addiction, Reproductive Equality Now, and the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts.
“For two decades, it has been clear that the ‘move fast and break things’ ethos exploits consumers, endangers vulnerable communities, and deeply undermines civil rights and civil liberties,” the letter reads. “Meta’s new plans will worsen that disastrous track record.”
The coalition argued, “Such a feature cannot be solved through product design changes, opt-out mechanisms, or incremental security measures”, particularly given that public viewers have no way to consent to being identified by the glasses.
This is a particularly precarious situation, given the militarization of Immigration and Customs Enforcement by the Trump administration, whose agents using cutting edge technology To identify their goals.
“People should be able to go about their daily lives without fear that stalkers, scammers, abusers, federal agents and activists across the political spectrum are silently and invisibly verifying their identities and potentially matching their names with readily available data about their habits, hobbies, relationships, health and behavior,” the coalition wrote in its letter.
As wired Point out, if Meta turns off the facial recognition feature, it won’t be the first time. At the end of 2021, the company Facebook phototagging feature canceled Which used technology to identify individuals.
“We need to weigh the positive use cases for facial recognition against growing societal concerns, especially when regulators have not yet provided clear rules,” the company wrote in an announcement at the time.
Meta has also been ordered to pay billions of dollars To Settle biometric privacy lawsuitssome of which were Related to the use of facial recognition software.
“When you move fast, you break things — and in this case, the casualties may include our democracy, our privacy, and countless individuals, families and communities,” the coalition’s letter reads. “An approach to technology that privatizes profits and socializes losses has irreversible consequences for people’s security, liberty, and civil rights.”
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