It’s been a bit of a rough month for smart camera glasses like the Ray-Ban Metas.
While this tech has been gathering a lot of hype and interest of late, it has also suffered a number of damaging PR scandals after stories have emerged of camera glasses being used to stalk and harass women in spaces like offices and gyms.
It has given rise to an unfortunate nickname for the tech – ‘pervert glasses’ – that is beginning to stick.
The tech’s increased notoriety is having predictable consequences. In the UK, where I live, the glasses have been banned in all judicial buildings (such as courtrooms and their surroundings), as well as in the popular pub chain Wetherspoons, which operates more than 800 venues across the country, and at Comic-Con UK following incidences of non-consensual filming.
All this has me wondering – can the tech recover its reputation at this point or is it too far gone?
Those of a certain age will recall the infamous 2011 launch of Google Glass, a pair of proto-smart glasses that were essentially mocked into oblivion, with its users dubbed ‘glassholes’. Meta glasses and their imitators have proved more tenacious, but the ‘pervert glasses’ moniker could ultimately prove just as fatal.
Granted, manufacturers can’t always control what users do with their products. Smartphones and regular cameras have certainly been used to harass people and take non-consensual photos, and nobody’s suggesting banning them. However, camera glasses just make it so easy – and to my mind, manufacturers are not convincingly demonstrating that they care.
Recently I reviewed the Rokid AI Glasses Style for DCW – they’re essentially a copy of the Meta version using a combination of Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT rather than Meta AI. I enjoyed using them and was genuinely impressed by the tech, but something I had difficulty getting past was how lackluster the privacy features are.
The white LED designed to alert others to the fact that you’re recording is dim, unobtrusive and easy to miss – I’m going to guess that not a single person I passed while testing them at London’s Kew Gardens noticed it.
The glasses are also supposed to stop recording if the privacy light is blocked, but I tested this and… they don’t. They play an automated message in your ears, notifying that the light is blocked, but recording continues.
If you’ll forgive me for quoting myself, what I said at the time was: "[camera glasses] tech is never going to shake its reputation for irresponsible use when manufacturers make irresponsible use so easy."
The recording light on Meta Glasses, too, is white (not red) and fairly unobtrusive, and it is difficult to think of non-pervert explanations for why this is the case.
The firm's quiet embedding of a facial-recognition system in its glasses platform also garnered unwelcome attention – and the company backed down and removed it after public outrage. Now, I can think of non-pervert reasons why this tech might be useful in a pair of camera glasses – but the pervert ones do spring to mind more readily, don't they?
Meta is committed to its camera glasses and other manufacturers are following suit, with Apple and Google planning to launch their own intelligent eyewear later this year.
All I can say is: they should be careful. This backlash is not going away any time soon and, unless these manufacturers can seriously demonstrate their commitment to preventing their products being used for nefarious purposes, that ‘pervert glasses’ nickname is going to keep on sticking.
You may also like...
Our guides to the best camera glasses and the best wearable cameras.
