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For years, the debate over wearable cameras has been dominated by the polarising rise of smart glasses, a category recently bogged down by public unease and controversy over cheap, invasive knock-offs. But a leak buried in Apple’s own software this week – featuring an instructional video for upcoming camera-equipped AirPods – proves this technology is evolving beyond novelty eyewear.
While Apple’s staunch track record on user privacy suggests these earbuds will not be designed for secret recording, their eventual release will thrust the famously cautious tech giant directly into the centre of our growing cultural clash over whether, and to what degree, face-mounted cameras should be tolerated in public.
Like Google, Samsung and others, Apple is tipped to be working towards smart glasses that contain speakers, cameras, microphones and the ability to connect wirelessly to a smartphone. Meta has been first to truly enter this space, with its Ray-Ban models proving very successful since launch in 2023.
The glasses have always come with a degree of distrust and scrutiny, given their ability to take photos and record video. Even though every person carries a smartphone that can record at a moment’s notice, the new and unfamiliar format challenges concepts of public and private places, and emboldens creeps who want to film people surreptitiously.
Still, given their luxury branding and high price, the Meta glasses have avoided full-blown backlash. In Australia, it wasn’t until a cheap pair arrived at Kmart for $89 earlier this month that people really took notice.
Petitions emerged to ban the product category entirely, receiving tens of thousands of signatures. Regulators and government officials expressed concerns about the technology. Researchers and tech commentators reminded us of what they’ve been saying for at least three years: we need to be paying attention to this.
But before we get to privacy concerns and matters of big tech trust, a key question is whether there is any legitimate benefit or value to consumers in these gadgets. Is there utility not related to committing crimes, or hurting others? I think it’s pretty clear there is.
A lot of what we currently use phones for requires us to pop some earbuds into our ears, or hold up our device, so the camera can see something. At their absolute simplest, devices we can keep on our face that have speakers, microphones and cameras remove the need for that step, by communicating wirelessly with a device we can keep in our pocket or bag.
Right now, that means you could translate a foreign sign, identify an insect, send a quick snap to a friend, get an audio museum tour, or have step-by-step help for a project you’re working on, without needing your phone. But in the near future, it could mean never needing to scan a QR code or use an app like Translate or Google Lens again. Your phone would just have access to what you can see and hear, whenever you activate the glasses or say the wake word.
Ultimately, these devices will also have screens that can overlay information onto your view of the world, with some Meta models already featuring an early version of this. Again, apps already do this if you hold up your phone. Device-makers absolutely exaggerate the amount of “freedom” you get by moving functions away from your smartphone to invisible ambient AI, but there are genuinely many ways devices like this can provide us with access to information while we’re looking ahead rather than down.
It’s not necessarily useful, then, to try and paint the technology as only attractive to sex offenders. Instead, what we need to be doing is addressing the two main categories of obvious danger inherent in the tech; that some people will use it to harm others, and that big tech will exploit it to continue its massive data harvesting.
There will always be people who exploit new technology for selfish, criminal or harmful purposes, and often the public is unprepared. Look at how the popularisation of email led to an unprecedented explosion in scams, or how social media has allowed misinformation to become ubiquitous. Big tech talks a lot about its privacy-preserving features, but we can’t simply leave those decisions up to them, especially since there will inevitably be knock-offs from brands much less concerned about their public image.
There are already clear examples of people misusing smart glasses to film people who are not aware they’re being filmed. Regulation needs to consider the capabilities of the devices – for example should there be minimum standards for recording lights and noises, should recording via wireless face-worn devices be banned outright – but also the access and behaviour of the users. Should footage be watermarked, so crimes posted online can be traced to the perpetrators? Should posting video that prominently features a person unaware of the filming be made illegal?
A less immediate concern, but one we should keep in mind, is how big tech plans to benefit from smart glasses and other new wearables. Meta and others have described future devices as an enhancement for human memory, implying they’ll always be watching and saving information, for example so they can remind the user of what a person’s name is when they meet for a second time. The implications of this could be innocuous – the equivalent of making a private note in your phone – but history has taught us not to simply assume big tech is doing what’s right for us.
