When Google Glass first came out many years ago, people were outraged at the idea of being secretly recorded without their knowledge. Yes, we can use our phones to record, but that’s a lot more obvious than someone wearing a pair of glasses. It seems that those folks might have been onto something, because Meta is now facing a privacy lawsuit over its wearables.
What’s interesting is that this Meta privacy lawsuit isn’t being filed by people who were recorded. It is, in a way, being filed by people doing the recording. According to Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Goteborgs-Posten, it seems that human contractors hired by Meta, based in Kenya, have been reviewing intimate footage captured by users wearing Meta’s smart glasses.
This means that the privacy being violated here isn’t necessarily that of those who were recorded but of the people who were recording. Now, this isn’t about Meta secretly spying on you. It seems that these contractors were employed by Meta through Sama, a Nairobi-based outsourcing firm.
Their task is to label video and audio captured by the glasses. This is supposedly to help improve the AI experience. Basically, they’re helping to train Meta’s AI to make it better at identifying the world around them. Unsurprisingly, some of the footage captured was rather intimate.
Anonymous contractors who spoke to the publications claimed they came across all kinds of intimate videos. We’re talking about trips to the bathroom, sex, people watching NSFW content, bank cards, and even situations that could cause “enormous scandals” if they were leaked.
Taking action
Naturally, this caught the attention of various regulatory bodies, including the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Speaking to the BBC, the regulator said that it is writing to Meta. They want a formal explanation on how the company is meeting its obligations under UK data protection laws.
But it’s not just the UK that wants answers. It seems that over in the US, Clarkson Law Firm has filed a lawsuit on behalf of plaintiffs in New Jersey and California. They are alleging that the company violated privacy laws and also engaged in false advertising.
Meta’s reply: You can opt out
Meta has since released a statement to TechCrunch to clear the air. “Ray-Ban Meta glasses help you use AI, hands-free, to answer questions about the world around you. Unless users choose to share media they’ve captured with Meta or others, that media stays on the user’s device. When people share content with Meta AI, we sometimes use contractors to review this data for the purpose of improving people’s experience, as many other companies do. We take steps to filter this data to protect people’s privacy and to help prevent identifying information from being reviewed.”
