Spot the difference: Meta’s Ray-Bans spark stalking, DV fears

They look like regular Ray-Bans, but Meta’s new smart glasses are anything but, sparking fears of a surge in stalking, child abuse, bullying and domestic violence.

Hidden cameras and microphones have transformed the unassuming eyewear into powerful surveillance tools – and they are sold in mainstream stores for less than $500.

Anti-bullying advocates have called for a ban in schools and legal experts say there are gaps in Australian privacy law.

It comes as Harvard students recently proved how easily the glasses could be paired with facial recognition technology to create real-time tracking devices that identify the strangers around them.

Bully Zero chief executive Janet Grima said the glasses “should absolutely be banned in schools”.

“(Smart glasses) could easily be weaponised by bullies to record or capture embarrassing private moments of their peers, especially without permission,” she said.

“Whether it’s at school, in the workplace, in public places like the beach, we don’t know what’s going to be recorded, how it’s going to be used and how it then implicates the life of the individual who is being recorded.

“Very alarming and grave concerns.”

An eSafety Commissioner spokeswoman said Meta’s Ray-Bans could also be used in image-based abuse.

“Predators already commonly livestream, record and share child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online and powerful AI tools can enable the creation of CSAM using real photos and imagery of children that may be captured surreptitiously,” she said.

“Technology that enables discreet filming may also be used by domestic violence perpetrators as a form of surveillance and ‘coercive control’.”

There are also concerns smart glasses will be used for scams and “doxxing” – the malicious release of personal data online – after two Harvard students went viral earlier this month for adding facial recognition software to their smart glasses.

Merely looking at a person’s face delivered personal details from online databases straight to the user’s phone.

This is not a difficult hack either, according to computer science expert and University of NSW senior lecturer Dr Sebastian Sequoiah-Grayson.

“It’s not the sort of thing your average everyday user would be able to do, but it’s the sort of thing the average developer would be able to do,” he said.

About one in five women and one in 15 men have experienced stalking since the age of 15, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released this week.

“People might not enjoy every Tom, Dick and Harry out there being able to scan a crowd and find them,” Dr Sebastian Sequoiah-Grayson said.

“But that technology is coming, nothing is going to stop that.”

AI expert and futurist Andrew Grill predicted smart glasses would not become mainstream, but would be popular among “bad actors”.

“I think we’ll start to see signs (in business fronts) saying ‘no Meta glasses allowed here’ but the challenge is it’s very hard to detect what are (regular) glasses and what are Meta glasses,” the Digitally Curious author said.

Holding Redlich general counsel and data law expert Lyn Nicholson said there were not a lot of rules preventing smart glasses being used by bad actors.

She said new anti-doxxing laws were with parliament now as part of Privacy Act reforms but these would only cover published content.

They would not cover a person being filmed but the video not published – even if the video was combined with facial recognition to track their location, or if the video was used by Meta to train its AI products.

“(In most states,) you have to get consent from people to film them, but realistically, if you are an individual with these glasses and choose not to, how is someone going to take an action against you?” Ms Nicholson said.

“The law is really not designed to regulate individuals.”

Meta’s Ray-Bans have a small light that activates when filming to alert surrounding people and the glasses will not record if it is covered by a finger, but there are simple workarounds being shared online.

Mother Renee Martin, of the Brisbane suburb of Chermside, said she did not feel comfortable knowing people had hidden cameras and microphones in their glasses, and they should not be allowed in schoolyards, playgrounds, pools and beaches.

“You lose your right to the small amount of privacy we have left, in addition to having less control and knowledge of what is being recorded,” she said.

“There is no way of regulating this technology.”

Originally published as Meta’s Ray-Bans: Calls for spy glasses to be banned with fears of stalking, child abuse, bullying, DV