Meanwhile, there’s a proposed nationwide class action lawsuit advancing in the US that accuses Meta of continually lying about privacy risks in the marketing of its AI glasses. Meta has yet to file a response in that litigation, but in its statements and marketing campaigns, the tech giant continues to insist the glasses are designed with privacy in mind.
Privacy risks remain, users say
In addition to the tweak to block some smart-glasses users from bypassing the only safeguard that helps prevent nonconsensual recording, Meta also launched a new marketing campaign to spread awareness about the LED light feature, The Verge reported.
In Los Angeles, for example, there’s a billboard that shows an image of a smiling girl wearing Meta glasses, with her fingers placed to draw attention to the recording light that shines as bright as her grin. The caption reads, “The camera lets you capture the moment. The light lets everyone around you know when you do.”
“Designed for everyone,” the billboard says. “Not just the people wearing them.”
Whether that messaging is going to drive it home to people breezing past the billboard that Meta glasses may be recording you if you see a light on, the EU suspects that we don’t really know.
However, people who bought into the privacy promises and are now suing Meta for false advertising have warned that Meta has long been pushing this messaging, claiming in prior ads that Meta AI Glasses are “Built for your privacy and others’ too.” But “in reality, users of Meta AI Glasses cannot control what happens to their data, or the data they capture of the people around them,” the users alleged.
Although the class-action complaint is not explicitly focused on nonconsensual recording, the complaint alleged that its core claims reveal another layer of the issue that many members of the public likely don’t understand from the marketing campaigns.
The lawsuit challenges Meta’s advertising claims that glasses users control data, saying this is “false” and alleging that Meta does not inform users that human data annotators in Kenya review all footage captured by the glasses, allegedly in order to train Meta AI. That reportedly includes watching “deeply personal” videos, including those depicting sexual activity or bathroom visits, as well as sensitive content, like credit card information or private text messages.