Smart glasses with cameras are essentially a privacy nightmare, but Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses (and now its own brands) has a privacy light to indicate when the camera is active. To prevent those trying to get around this indicator, Meta’s smart glasses will completely disable the camera if the privacy light is destroyed or tampered with.
The privacy light on Meta Glasses and Ray-Ban Meta glasses is there to let everyone around you know that the camera is active, whether they’re taking photos or videos. And if that light was covered, Meta’s glasses would block the camera until the light came on.
For those who used these glasses for nefarious purposes – which was becoming more and more common – there were workarounds to keep the light out. Some have even offered glasses replacement services for this purpose, as reported. This involves physically altering or even destroying that light, allowing the glasses to record without recording.
Smart glasses, especially Meta’s glasses, have seen an intense public response in recent months, and Meta is now addressing this growing problem.
In a post todayMeta explains that the new update will disable the camera if the glasses detect that the privacy LED has been “physically altered or destroyed.”
When people try to do this, the camera is disabled. Starting with our second-generation glasses, the camera automatically turns off when it detects that the shooting LED is blocked. No photos or videos can be taken until you detect that the light is out of the block.
Since the introduction of this safeguard, we have seen some people go beyond using tape to elaborate efforts to modify or destroy the capture LED. We’re continuously improving our ability to detect tampering, and we’re now updating the glasses to turn off the camera when we detect that the LED has been physically modified or destroyed. No other camera has done this and we’re proud to move the industry forward.
Meta also said it is working to “remove ads, posts and Marketplace listings” for services that modify smart glasses to turn off the LED, and take legal action against those individuals and/or companies.
Meta also adds to the email 9 to 5 Google that this update is currently actively rolling out and is “mandatory” for all users.
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