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If you own glasses that record people without their consent, we can't be friend, and please don't talk to me.
Bo Morgan@neptune22222 Use your phone.
@Em0nM4stodon What if my glasses are FOSH, secure and private?
@neptune22222 If you're filming people without their knowledge and consent (unless it's in the public interest like recording police work), this is still wrong and creepy.
And even for public interest reporting, your camera should be visible.
Right, I'm just making the point that whether it is a phone or glasses makes no difference.
@neptune22222 Yes, it does. People don't assume you are filming them when you are just wearing glasses. Most people with a rectangle pointed at them will suspect you might be filming them. The fact that it's disguised as glasses to record people without their knowledge matters a lot.
People walk around with their phones in front of them, as if they are video chatting, all of the time.
If someone is secretly recording video and audio of other people, that's creepy, independent of form factor.
@neptune22222 Yes, it's creepy too. Making this practice possible with glasses as well is doubly creepy, and needs to be pushed back against.
It's not because it's already wrong with phones that it's okay to add glasses to the abuse repertoire.
ZenHeathen 🇨🇦@Em0nM4stodon Your first toot in this string was right on the money, so I'm blocking that guy.
It's a slightly separate topic, but I'm interested in building and selling FOSH headsets for low vision people to see better. It's an accessibility medical product idea with important privacy and security considerations. The product *could* record people in a creepy way, if it is built in an insecure and non-private way, but it's important to establish non-creepy glasses for these purposes and other useful purposes.
@Em0nM4stodon Recognizing that Facebook should be boycotted in general is also a good idea, but also unrelated to glasses.
@neptune22222 It doesn't have to be glasses then. It could be an offline camera wore in the neck using bright colors, and with clear warnings to people around that this device is recording but doesn't share data externally and is an assistive device. There are ways to build assistive technologies without infringing other people's rights and safety and feeding mass surveillance.
The FOSH assistive glasses that I'm planning to build would require being glasses, but your point about them being a bright color is a good idea. I need to study more about how to guarantee that they do not record, which I think is unnecessary for the use cases that I think would be most immediately useful for low vision people. I think brand trust is necessary but not sufficient. For example, some people trust Apple, while I don't.
Arthfach 🐻@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon I am your target audience. Legally blind, ridiculously high powered glasses that barely get me to "driving legal" where I live, on a good day.
I would boycott your product based on this thread.
Anyone who resists a clear statement of "people deserve to have their privacy and know when they are being recorded" is someone that instantly fails my trust model. And if you don't pass my trust model, you will never get a sale. Let alone that my disability is not a justification for defending the destruction of privacy and consent.
Not saying this to be an asshole, but you may find benefit in knowing what your future target audience thinks and how you are coming across to us currently.
I would boycott your product based on this thread.
Anyone who resists a clear statement of "people deserve to have their privacy and know when they are being recorded" is someone that instantly fails my trust model. And if you don't pass my trust model, you will never get a sale. Let alone that my disability is not a justification for defending the destruction of privacy and consent.
Not saying this to be an asshole, but you may find benefit in knowing what your future target audience thinks and how you are coming across to us currently.
Hi Arthfach, I'm sorry that I've made the impression to you that I'm resisting privacy and security. I'm attempting to resist the idea that glasses are a fundamentally insecure or not private medium. Also, recording ICE and police, possibly using glasses, is important. Again, I think you have misunderstood my position. It's totally my fault, and I hope to better communicate my position, which is in summary:
1. Glasses with cameras and computers in them are important for visually impaired people. So, we should not push back against them indiscriminately.
2. Security and privacy are critical for medical devices, including assistive tech, and FOSH (Free Open Source Hardware) is a required but not sufficient part of secure and private technology.
I'm also blind, mostly, legally. I have Retinitus Pigmentosa, and I'm developing this private and secure assistive technology for myself and I believe it will also be useful to others who value security and privacy as much as I do.
@arthfach So glad you said it.
Heini HuberWhen developing such glasses, you are in direct competition with Big Tech. They can exploit user content economically and, as a result, probably bring the necessary devices onto the market for free.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for your project! Our society needs people with thoughts like yours!
@heinihuber I don't feel like what we are doing is competitive. We're developing everything that we do as FOSH (Free Open Source Hardware), so the project is public and cooperative. We've created a company (@bce ) that is a nonprofit so that no one owns the company to reduce capitalistic selfish monopolistic incentive.
If Big Tech wants to contribute to our FOSH technology, that would be great. We are licensing everything we do as AGPL, so they cannot copy what we do and make it secret and proprietary, and if they want to improve what we do, they need to release their improvements back to the public. The AGPL is the strongest copyleft license as far as we know.
Big Tech might see us as competition, but we are not competing. A FOSH solution is a better solution, hands down, no competition.
Dave Nathanson@Em0nM4stodon @neptune22222 If the glasses have to have a record function for some reason, they can have a small flashing red light and a small audible ping when recording.
Forkidork@Em0nM4stodon @neptune22222 r
Really??
And why not a fucking jester's hat with bells too?
I can picture the sanctimonious masses stoning blind people shouting "glass hole!"
We're going to have a field day! ♥️
That's hilarious. I was thinking more of a branding bright color, like my white cane, which I've chosen a bright orange tip to show my remaining low vision. Being a proud member of the blind community is relatively new to me as I've only been using my white cane with orange tip for about a month, but I love it so far. These are huge privacy and security issues with no simple solutions that I see. From a medical perspective, they are critical to resolve.
@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon
It really pains me to hear about that and I admire your positive attitude. I wish I had it myself for some lesser challenges that I face... Thanks for setting the example, really
As for the privacy concerns:
@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon
I think there are much better targets of this fury. Like people placing cameras on their dashboards, insurance companies that require them, tourists filming everything (Yeah, I can seen them, so what? what can I do about it? Never leave home?)
I think there are much better targets of this fury. Like people placing cameras on their dashboards, insurance companies that require them, tourists filming everything (Yeah, I can seen them, so what? what can I do about it? Never leave home?)
@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon
I think it's petty and cruel to deny a helpful device so badly needed by some for this reason. And it's not just blind people - cognitively impaired people, for instance? The damage is not proportional to the benefit they think to be obtaining.
And I think it's become the classic object of culture wars; a dissempowered, very small group that is more satisfying to target than things like YouTubers or Palantir. Get your hate priorities right, people...
Petra van Cronenburg@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon "Secretly recording" is an actual crime in Massachusetts. It's not just creepy.
Open recording is not a crime.
廃墟猫 🐈🌈🐈⬛🐈🐈⬛🐈⬛@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon I mean, if you want to video someone with your phone, you literally have to point it at them. It at least gives people the suspicion that they might be being filmed. To say that's the same as just wearing glasses is ridiculous.
Edit: add that most people understand phones can video them, whilst many are unaware that some glasses can.
I didn't say that phones are the same as glasses.
I'm saying that wearing glasses that clearly have cameras with computers in them is an important thing to allow for medical reasons.
Don't be a creep. We can agree on that.
Policing other people's use of technology is harder to agree on.
It's kind of like arguments against encryption because we should be able to more easily catch criminals. It's already against the law to record people secretly in some states. If people are breaking the law, the question is, how can the law be enforced?
@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon well you actually did.
There's also recorded cases of people using meta raybans to record people in situations where it would have be really obvious with a phone camera, but people were unaware of the glasses cameras.
Bo Morgan (@[email protected])
@[email protected] Right, I'm just making the point that whether it is a phone or glasses makes no difference.
@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon also, which glasses "clearly" have cameras in? Most are designed to look like normal glasses.
I'm not sure what is currently available. I'm planning to work on FOSH (Free Open Source Hardware) glasses that are secure and private to provide an assistive tool for low vision people to improve their ability to deal with blind spots. I think it will be obvious that there are cameras and computers in the glasses that I plan to build. To be clear, I'm not planning to build or release my designs in the next 2 years. At this point, I am just seeing the need for a public that allows people to use computers in glasses for medical reasons. I don't like Apple because it is a monopolistic company, but the Apple VisionPro is useful to some blind and low vision people, so I wouldn't hold it against them for using those glasses. They are also an example of glasses that have cameras and computers.
If you're recording people without their consent, it doesn't matter if you're using glasses or a phone. That is what I said. I didn't say that there is no difference between glasses and a phone.
It is against the law, in some states, to record someone secretly. This is true independent of the technology used. It doesn't matter if you use a phone or glasses in this context as well.
If someone is breaking the law, we need ways to enforce the law.
@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon it does matter. In one case, it's fairly obvious you're being recorded, and you can take action. In the other, it's likely you'd have no idea you're being recorded and thus you can't take any action.
It's a blinding obvious difference, and if you don't recognise that I can't believe you're arguing in good faith.
Edit: stupid autocorrect
I think we're arguing two different points. I agree that it is more obvious in some cases when you are being recorded with a phone. I'm not arguing that point.
I'm arguing that if you are recording police or ICE or anyone in public, you do not need consent, legally. You might be a creep, but it is an important right to record the police and ICE in public without their consent to protect democracy. It doesn't make a difference what type of technology you use to record the police or ICE in public, as long as you are following the law. To follow the law, you are not allowed to record secretly without their knowing. You don't need their consent, but you do need to somehow advertise the fact that you are recording. Whether you use glasses or a phone doesn't matter, but you do need to display somehow the fact that you are recording. How you display this fact will likely be different in each case, but which technology you use to record the police or ICE doesn't matter.
Ho Ho Ho Like The Slur@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon I've been living in my town for five years. I've never seen a person holding their phone up video chatting in a way that could be filming their surroundings.
I've worked at a series of public hospitals and universities for ten years. I've never seen someone at one of the hospitals or universities doing this while I was at work.
Maybe it's cultural, but this seems to be something people don't do here, at least not in places like hospitals, universities or neighbourhoods.
My experience is also just anecdotal, but I can confirm that I do see this behavior periodically where I like in Santa Cruz, California. We are a college town, with UCSC here, so we have a higher percentage of 18 to 22 year old people, which may be part of the reason. I also usually see this behavior as I walk by the ocean, so perhaps this is a more popular place for people to walk and video chat in public. I believe they are actually video chatting and not surreptitiously recording others.
@neptune22222 overall the important thing for you to focus on is the user.
This appears to be yet another example of something that looks like it will increase accessibility for disabled people *from the point of view of an abled developer*.
These projects can seem very exciting and personally affirming for developers and they can attract investors. Unfortunately this is almost always at the expense of disabled users, who are left with an unusable tech investment when the novelty wears off and the developer inevitably wanders away.
Yup, I'm the first user.
@neptune22222 enjoy seeing a slightly clearer picture of all those 18-22yos you're already watching 😬 @Em0nM4stodon
That's a creepy thing to say.
@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon it's a creepy thing you admitted you do.
@Em0nM4stodon We have so many cases of men filming secretly under the skirt of women with the phone (crowds in public transport, stairs), that it's now part of abuse laws, illegal. The instrument doesn't play a role but the glasses are a danger because you mostly don't notice it. @neptune22222
Shoe BillYep. I actually saw someone walking around in public with what I can only describe as a GoPro on the end of a stick. I assume they were making a YouTube video or something, because they had the camera facing themselves and they were talking to it (from what I saw at least), but they could've just turned it around if they'd wanted to, obviously. You just can't say that they were recording anyone secretly, either way, is where I'm going with this. If I don't like it, I can just move so I'm not in their shot; it's whatever.
Yeah, I have no problem with people recording me in public as part of their online media streaming. I'm in public and I don't really mind being recorded to some extent. The BigTech surveillance of all phones (e.g. Google and Apple) bothers me more than individual people gathering data about individuals. Both are issues, but BigTech breaking the law is a bigger issue for me.
@Em0nM4stodon Where I live, it's even illegal, it's a crime. @neptune22222
Verđandi K SoldustyFor you, yes. For the people you're filming without their knowledge & without their consent it's a hard nope!
It is important to have technology that you control so that you can record ICE and police without their consent. It doesn't matter what type of technology you use for this purpose, but if you use technology that you do not trust, it may be spying on you, such as if you use your iPhone or your Android phone, you may be reported to the authorities, and you can't know partly because it is not open source. So, recording without consent is important to maintain a democracy. It is important for free journalists to report on corruption.
As a medical product, we need solutions that are socially acceptable, so we need a brand that allows a low vision person to go to the bathroom or to the changing room and use their glasses in highly private contexts, including jobs that include looking at private material in government or corporate contexts. People with low vision should have access to secure & private medical solutions that include guarantees of privacy and security for both them and everything they see (or hear).
@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon
One word. Smartphone 📱.
You really are a creep!
Dave "Wear A Goddamn Mask" Cochran 
@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon I'm not sure what part of "no" you are having trouble with, but it's kind of worrisome.
Haha... It's important to record ICE and police without consent. No consent for ICE or police. They are public servants. Another way to think about it: ICE and police have already given consent to being recorded by being public servants.
I'm also not a lawyer, but I think it is legal to record anyone as long as you are clearly doing it, but I may be wrong.
@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon and you're NOT clearly doing it if you're wearing metagoggles. Hell, I'm a fuckin' nerd-ass motherfucker and I DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE. You expect some shmuck on the street is gonna be able to?
@neptune22222 @Em0nM4stodon oh yeah, you're DEFINITELY on the right side of history here: https://tldr.nettime.org/@remixtures/116075410883057361
Yeah, I'm not talking about Facebook's glasses. I've already said that everyone should boycott Facebook / Meta.
I'm saying that glasses in general should not be banned because some glasses could be secure and trusted and very helpful to some people with low vision problems, and probably other people as well. Glasses that improve vision are very helpful.
I'm a Luddite. I'm against tech that is against workers, which is tech that is controlled by capitalists. This includes Meta's products, Google's products, Microsoft's products, Apple's products. If they release the products so that the people can control them to not spy on them, they may be able to be trusted but not until then.
さよなら皆さん@Em0nM4stodon if I see this, I am taking out my phone, launching the camera app and sticking it right in the face of the person wearing these spy devices. Creepy as fuck.
JRT@Em0nM4stodon Glassholes!
I agree with you, first off.
Also, I have no idea what the laws are like in Canada or anywhere else outside of the US.
That having been said…
Recording Video in Public Places
Recording video in public is generally permissible in places like public parks, city streets, and sidewalks, where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. This means that if something is visible to the naked eye in a public space, you can record it. This principle extends to filming government buildings and the actions of public officials, like police officers, performing their duties in public.
This right does not extend into areas that, while publicly accessible, are considered private. The key determinant is the “reasonable expectation of privacy,” meaning you cannot use technology to see through the walls of a private home from a public street. The legal framework protects what people can plainly see, not what can be captured with invasive technology.
The Legality of Recording Audio
Capturing audio is governed by stricter laws than recording video alone, due to federal and state wiretapping statutes. The federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), often called the Wiretap Act, makes it illegal to intentionally intercept any wire, oral, or electronic communication. A violation of this act can lead to both criminal penalties and civil lawsuits.
The federal law, and the laws in a majority of states, operate under a “one-party consent” rule. This means you can legally record a conversation if you are a party to that conversation, as your participation implies your own consent. Most states and the District of Columbia follow this standard.
A number of states, however, have enacted more stringent “all-party consent” laws. In these jurisdictions, you must obtain permission from everyone involved in a private conversation to legally record it. States with all-party consent laws include:
- California
- Florida
- Pennsylvania
- Washington
If a conversation involves participants in different states, the best practice is to adhere to the strictest applicable law, which is the all-party consent rule.
Source: https://legalclarity.org/are-camera-glasses-legal-video-and-audio-recording-laws/
Obligatory: I'm not a lawyer.
It seems to me like, at least most places in the U.S., the fact that it records video is a non-issue while in public, at least in the legal sense, but also like the fact that it records audio could very easily make it illegal in public.
@the There is a difference between legal and ethical. I care much less about the former than the latter.
So do I. I also like to know how to get someone on a technicality when they're doing something unethical.
Malka Beth@the @Em0nM4stodon my thing on this is as it is for so many solidly starting bans is, be it from an ethical or legal standpoint: how is it enforced?
Many enforcement mechanisms being problematic at best, especially for & near both ends of the power spectrum.
More specifically: Are these glasses & similar going to get so popular that me &/or my spouse are going to get asked to remove our glasses (which cant record anything) to enter various spaces- like bathrooms, restaurants or medical centers?
*I'm somewhere between moderately & severely nearsighted which makes it rather dangerous for me to walk without wearing my glasses & his light sensitivity makes removal of glasses often problematic, just as barring them for him reading is a problem.
This is why I'd prefer a ban on this technology in it's use & ownership instead, because I don't really see how else, beyond asking all to at least temporarily remove their glasses, you could enforce a partial/specific use ban & to ask all of us to do so is a significant hardship.
@BrahmaBelarusian @Em0nM4stodon
Oh, no… Just wait until they figure out how to downsize them to contacts…