771
Women in Brussels 'filmed without their knowledge' by men wearing Meta smart glasses
(www.brusselstimes.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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Technology
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I understand how creepy this is but why is this any different than the 1000s of cameras on poles literally everywhere these days. Neither of these should be acceptable
I trust individuals with a camera or two far more than I trust the government with cameras everywhere.
The cameras on poles can't see literally everywhere, and can't physically follow you around.
And the cameras on poles have (at least in theory) regulations and laws governing how their footage can (and cannot) be used.
MetaCreepSpecs don't have any such restrictions.
Ok. How is this different from cameras on phones, or cameras hidden in shirt button?
It's not, and the same rules apply to those.
It wouldn't historically be crazy to take your sunglasses into a locker room or bathroom, for example. Now? WTF DUDE. YOU SOME KIND OF CREEP!?
The cameras on poles are meant for public spaces and security. Meta glasses are for whatever the fuck the wearer will intend the recordings for for private use.
The article is about people being filmed in public places though.
Completely agree, but because another bad thing exists, it’s no reason not to care about this bad thing.
These are also separate (but obviously related) issues. The flock and other surveillance cameras are about control and, well surveillance. These meta glasses are about personal interactions and predatory behavior of creepy people. They are also markedly different than cameras in phones, since they are much more obvious that they are recording.
They both need to go.
Which is why I said neither of these should be acceptable.
Which is why I said I completely agree. Just adding some context..
Oh sorry. Reading comprehension is not my strong point.. 😀 Carry on.
No worries, we’re all friends here. Carry on yourself :)
Because somehow those recordings being misused is less offensive than these recordings being misused.
Honestly, the privacy aspect in public is completely out the window already. Anyone arguing that these are somehow worse than what already exists is either arguing in bad faith or misunderstands the current (previous?) state of things.
They're not worse, but having yet another thing invading our privacy in public IS worse. No sense in giving up even more ground.
Stop and think about what you just said for a second. Privacy…..in public. You have no privacy in public, those are opposites.
There's degrees of privacy. People don't deserve to be recorded 24/7 just because they happen to be outside.
You might skip any trips to urban UK.
US cities are doing it too, but I just avoid urban areas as much as possible regardless.
They don’t “deserve” to, but it is not illegal if they are. If you’re in a public space you shouldn’t expect privacy…..because you’re in a public place. That’s pretty obvious.
Found the creep.
Something being legal doesn't make it morally correct and the rest of us should oppose this shit in every way we can, not simply expect it.
Oppose what, that you can be filmed or photographed without explicit consent when you’re in public?
So if I go to the Eiffel Tower, I have to go and ask the hundreds of other people there if they consent to me taking their photo simply because they’re in my photo? Or if I see a criminal breaking into a house, I have to ask them if I can take their photo/video if I want to report them and hand over my photos/video to the police?
Snapping a photo or video of your family or a landmark for your personal memories that happens to have some other people in the background is a hell of a lot different than sending a constant stream of everyone you're looking at along with location data to Facebook, Google, the government, and whoever the fuck else. I shouldn't have to explain this to you. And yes if you're going to be uploading someones image online I do think you should have their permission.
creeps.
the same creeps who can't understand what the problem is. creeps filming women and girls without permission or consent.
creeps like you apparently.
Perhaps your future camera could automatically fog any individual that you haven't received prior consent from.
And yes, I realise this idea has a number of technological requirements that may not exist yet, or cannot reliably exist ever, and requires the trusting of some authority in a world where noone of that esteem seem to be able to exist.
Difference being: we're kind of powerless against government surveillance high up on a fence, but we can sanction the class traitor glassholes with an accidental elbow to the glasses and a clumsy step on them.
Seems like you’re giving a pass to government and corpos, while assaulting fellow citizens.
I intend on getting whatever glasses eventually come out with an AR layer involved, camera or not. Doesn’t mean I’ll be constantly recording. In fact I’d likely almost never record anything.
And apparently that means I deserve an elbow to the face.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
For AR you need to be recording. If you are recording, it is being sent to Facebook servers. You accepted Facebook's terms and conditions, not me.
If you don't want to be punched, you should advocate for laws that make the glasshole glasses ugly through non-avoidable methods of detecting if the glasses are recording.
For example by requiring every glass hole glass to have a physical cover that physically covers the view of the camera, and it should be a bright color to easily see if it is covering the camera or not. The contour of the camera should be painted with an equally bright color, contrasting highly with the cover. So you can easily see if the cover is covering it completely.
A led that turns on when recording is not enough, it's very easy to remove a led from a device.
If you want to not use glass hole glasses for evil, you should want it to be mandatory for other people to see if you're using it for evil or not.
AR could never work by sending a recording to an external server. At least not with available technology. And in fact, you wouldn’t necessarily need to even have image data, lidar would suffice. All handled on device.
Calculating the AR locally doesn't mean that you won't be sending the recording to Facebook.
They don't collect data because it is necessary for the technology they use. They collect data because they sell it.
No, I am not giving a pass to government and corpos. But people recording others in public are henchmen of the very same fascist governments and yes, you deserve an elbow to the face if you record ANYONE (in more detail than within a large group of pedestrians) in public EVER without their explicit consent. Because you are - at least in civilized countries - violating privacy laws with the expectation that no one will sue you for it.
You’ve already stated that simply wearing them is assaultable. You have no way of knowing I’m recording, so you’ve just made the assumption that I am.
You’ll find that in almost every civilised country recording in public is 100% allowed. It’s what you do with the footage that has restrictions and laws around it.
Privacy in public is not a thing. They’re literally antonyms.
is being done != is being allowed. don't film people without explicit consent, or you deserve whatever happens to you as a consequence.
Sorry but the law is the law, and in public places you can and will be filmed and they don’t need your explicit consent. Which countries do you think it is illegal to film people in public places without explicit consent?
If you don’t like it, don’t go out in public. Also don’t pretend like anyone here is going to do anything to anyone wearing them lol. Everyone is a hero behind their keyboard. There would be no consequences.
What are you even talking about? How is being filmed not worse than not being filmed, privacy-wise?
One is state approved surveillance. The other is just a camera that is limited in scope, view, and usage.
This is what I don't get either. We literally have dozens of various camera options monitoring us in public, from random video doorbells to store CCTV, state/police CCTV, Google Maps cars, people on their phones, police officers and even random hired security thugs posing around with wearable cameras, drones, you name it... but the problem is cameras built into glasses?
Most European countries have actually codified that one has no expectations of privacy in public - that is, one may be recorded while out and about. Of course there's legislations about harassment - e.g. following someone with a camera and specifically recording them, in an attempt to harass or threaten them - and what essentially constitutes as blackmail ("I'll remove this video of you if you pay me"), so people should be using the recourse for those crimes, not criminalising a new product category.
Just owning a camera didn't make upskirt photos legal, nor does using a Meta camera glass make harassment legal.
Do you know the meaning of CCTV?
Also yes, you can have a reasonable expectation of privacy while in public – within reason.
Legally, you don't.
And while indeed CCTV used to mean that it's closed circuit, today it now refers simply to camera systems installed for public (in the sense of non-clandestine) surveillance purposes. Given most these systems are cloud connected, they're hardly closed circuit, right? Yet we still use the term.