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I get it, but I'm still uncomfortable with it.

The same value proposition surely applies to locking GPS collars. A clear value for individuals managing dementia patients, but it's a privacy nightmare for everyone and most of the customers aren't nurses.

Accessibility doesn't need to come at the expense of privacy.




There’s a clear difference in buying them for your own use and buying them for someone else: consent.

(And even giving them to someone else could still include consent)


That's exactly my point. These glasses affect more than just the wearer. Wearing these glasses exposes others.

I see the argument in public (thought I'm uncomfortable with that as well), but this affects other situations too. I'm not going to ask my blind friend to remove his accessibility device when he enters my home, but the same can't be true of my business. Can't have protected personal, health, financial, or corporate information delivered directly to Meta.

That's probably the crux of it. These aren't just vision aids, they're cloud-centric data-harvesting Meta products.

So I'm not arguing against the tech, but I am expressing discomfort. If I knew someone who wore these, even as an accessibility aid, I'd feel uncomfortable around them.


I do not agree that others are exposed in a way that can be compared with how they are exposed to hidden spy cameras.

Whenever you are in a place where there are other humans around, you are exposed, regardless if they have cameras or not.

Just counting on the fact that most humans have poor photographic memory, so they might forget what they have seen at you, cannot be claimed to be enough to consider that you are not exposed.

Whatever you do not want to be remembered, you should not do in the presence of humans. Wherever in your home or at your business there is something that you would not want remembered by others, you should not bring any guests, regardless if they carry cameras or not. If there exists any "protected personal, health, financial, or corporate information" that you do not consider public, you should not show that to your guests, regardless if they carry cameras or not.

I agree however that any cameras hidden wherever you believe that nobody sees you, are an assault on privacy, unlike cameras carried by humans, who you must expect to be able to see and remember you (or any of your private information that is visible), even without cameras.

Therefore I believe that in the majority of situations, restrictions on the carrying of cameras, including such as the Meta glasses, do not make sense. Either the presence of the untrusted humans must be completely forbidden, or wherever they are allowed they should be able to carry their cameras or glasses with them. One of the acceptable exceptions is for preventing the recording of shows, where even if I consider that it is an abuse to forbid recording for personal use, I agree that otherwise it would be difficult to discover later whether such recordings are in fact distributed commercially.

For a visit in a company however, camera restrictions are useless, because usually far less of the private information of a company is valuable than its management or its lawyers believe. The really valuable information is usually small enough to be easily remembered by a competent human who has seen it, with no need to record it with a camera. Information leaks must be prevented by allowing guest access only in selected areas and by showing them only the information that must be shared with them, not by frisking them for cameras.


I see your point, but I care about exposure to Meta, not to my friends. That's the new element here.

I don't agree that corporate restrictions on cameras are useless, even if the information itself isn't particularly valuable. I work in semicon, if I put these on at work and information somehow gets sent to a non-US server, I would have broken International Traffic in Arms Regulations. In all likelihood the information won't reach or be useful to China, but the US government doesn't care and will fine us into oblivion regardless. Honestly, it's more a liability thing than actual security.


Yup, privacy has and always been illusion. You can never know for certain if someone is listening or there's one OV6948 or 10,000 of them hidden in your house.

We need better laws around this, not the fact that the technology is present but managing the presence of the technology a la The Quantum Thief's Gevulot.

I always put it as "If I'm in bed and I see the shadow of a person standing outside my window, is it a person or an inconveniently shaped tree?" in that moment my supposed privacy is a Schrodinger's cat and after I have drawn the curtain to see what's out there, the hard truth is that I still can't be 100% certain that I have "privacy".


Dont sorry. Accessibility os DEI, so i expect them to only have privacy implications




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