Spying on your every move, the £379 Facebook glasses with a video camera hidden inside
Privacy fears as our reporter is able to wander among crowds – and even into changing rooms – without suspicion
MINGLING with crowds of shoppers in my stylish new glasses, nobody gives me a second glance. But then again, why would they? These chunky spectacles wouldn’t look out of place in the pages of a fashion magazine.
The thing is, I don’t actually need glasses. I have perfectly good vision. But these are not glasses as you and I understand them.
Created by Facebook in collaboration with the trendy Ray-Ban brand, they’re fitted with tiny cameras and microphones – what some might call spyware. And they enable me to snap and film at will as I move about the London streets and upload images to my phone. No wonder critics fear these spectacles are the gateway to a sinister new reality, where privacy and security are no more than afterthoughts.
On public transport, outside a Royal palace, in shops – even a medicine counter – inside changing rooms and public toilets, I’m free to film away, and no one seems to have a clue. Fellow passengers on the Tube pay no notice. Out on the high street I wander into TK Maxx, switch the video on with a quick tap of my finger and ask the sales assistant where the coats are. She stares straight into my eyes and directs me to the back of the store.
Changing rooms are a matter of growing controversy thanks to the transgender debate, but I’m free to walk right in wearing what amounts to a video camera on my face. Of course, I turn my spy-specs off. Then I pop into Boots and wander the aisles of the pharmacy, filming as shoppers around me pick out their cold and flu medication and browse the shelves.
Sold as Ray-Ban Stories, the glasses are available on the internet for £379. They can be switched on with a subtle tap of the finger or the simple voice command: ‘Hey Facebook, take a video.’ The only clue to what’s really going on is a pinprick of light – just a touch bigger than a poppy seed – at the side of the specs when recording is under way. It’s hard to detect in normal light – and no one did. I feel a little creepy.
I decide to raise the stakes. Security is tight at St Pancras Eurostar terminal, but heavily armed police officers walk on by without a glance. It’s the same story outside Charing Cross police station.
I am even able to film as I stroll around Kensington Palace Gardens, packed with embassies and close to the home of numerous Royals, including William and Kate.
Photography is forbidden, say the signs. But how is anyone to know what I’m up to?
According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the spy-specs are a ‘milestone’ along the road to merging reality with the internet. Glasses such as these, he believes, will soon be equipped with ‘augmented reality’ which involves overlaying visual, auditory or other sensory information on to the world to enhance one’s experience.
By projecting images from the web right before your eyes, Zuckerberg believes the new generation of glasses will unleash the full potential of the ‘metaverse’, a bizarre – and heavily hyped – digital universe, which encourages people to live out their private and professional lives on screen.
Ray-Ban Stories are not the first smart glasses to hit the market, but the forerunners, created by the likes of Google and Snapchat, were judged a failure, thanks in part to their sci-fi appearance. The Google Glass specs, for example, looked so weird that wearers were mocked and dubbed ‘glassholes’.
Ray-Ban Stories, in contrast, are discreet and attractive, thanks to the partnership with Ray-Ban, the luxury Italian-American brand that famously designed Tom Cruise’s aviators in Top Gun. The result is desirable glasses embedded with five mega-pixel cameras, three microphones and tiny speakers.
Tellingly, the Facebook logo appears nowhere on the glasses or their case. The only mention of the tech behemoth – now branded Meta – is on the cardboard packaging they come in.
The Facebook View app, linked to the glasses, offers just one page prompting the wearer to ‘respect people’s privacy’. Whether this friendly advice will be followed remains to be seen.
A spokesman for Meta admitted that ‘with any new technology it’s important to recognise there will unfortunately be instances where people will look to use it inappropriately. As the technology evolves we’ll continue to add to our privacy and safety protections.’
The film and audio I’m recording is stored on Facebook’s giant servers and, as ever with secretive Silicon Valley corporations, few of us know what, exactly, they will do with my data – and that of the hundreds of people I come across.
The app is said to be capable of collecting all kinds of information, from health and fitness to location, contacts and finances.
Back in the office, the high quality footage I’ve recorded automatically downloads to my phone. It is crisp and clear. From here, I can
share it on any site I like, apparently with no need to ask permission from the people who feature in it. They don’t even know their faces are stored on my device.
Experts say that this kind of wearable tech is here to stay – and it’s only going to get smarter. And more troubling, no doubt.
I’m free to film away and no one seems to have a clue. I feel a little creepy