Meta continues to crack down on malicious users disabling the privacy LED on its Ray-Ban smart glasses, this time focusing on the most obvious loophole out there.
Detailed by Meta’s VP of AR, Alex Himel, on Threads, a new update is “coming” to Ray-Ban smart glasses and Meta Smart Glasses to further block users from disabling the privacy LED.
Previously, Meta targeted users who were modifying the hardware to disable the LED, but it left the door open to an easier loophole – starting the recording and then covering the LED. While the glasses would block a recording from starting when the LED was covered, this loophole allowed users to cover the LED after the recording had already started. This new update stops the camera from recording if the light is covered.
We have an update coming to increase the reliability of the capture LED on our AI glasses. The camera won’t start recording if the LED is blocked, but some people try to bypass this by starting a recording and then covering it up. A fix for this is starting to roll out – the camera will now stop working if the light is covered during a recording.
We’re going to keep rolling out updates like this to make sure the capture LED can reliably alert bystanders when photos or videos are being captured for someone’s gallery. Only a tiny minority of people try to get around these protections, and the fact they have to go to these lengths shows our efforts are working. We’ll keep improving and evolving our approach.
On a dedicated privacy page on its website, Meta says that if the glasses “detect the Capture LED light was covered, physically tampered or destroyed, they’ll automatically disable the camera,” adding that “it’s that simple.” The page also goes over “tips to help you and those around you feel safe and comfortable while you’re wearing your glasses” such as turning off the glasses in “sensitive spaces” and reasoning that you shouldn’t record with glasses if you wouldn’t record with your phone.
The page also, notably, points out that “You, and only you” can see photos and videos captured on the glasses. That’s seemingly contrary to past reports that human moderators see videos from the glasses.
It’s unclear exactly when this next update will roll out, but it comes as smart glasses are under intense scrutiny from society, with Meta the main name in that conversation.
More on Smart Glasses:
- Samsung and Google are betting they can avoid Meta’s ‘perv glasses’ problem
- Meta & Ray-Ban glasses rolling out mandatory update that disables the camera when privacy light is broken
- Samsung teases <a href="https://myappsplus.com/google-tightens-android-app-memory-rules-due-to-ai-chip-shor/” title=”Google Tightens Android App Memory Rules Due to AI Chip Shor”>Android XR glasses with phone & watch integration, ‘reasonable’ price
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