Is it weird that I'd be happier with that? Easier to spot and has a "we're bringing that shit back" vibe that goes well with a disruptive product. Certainly beats trying to pass them as glasses.
It's like treating concealed carry of a weapon differently than open carry. I think it's reasonable to say "you can do this in public but only if it's clear to other people that you're doing it".
Targeting smart glasses specifically seems to narrow though, because there are obviously many other ways to carry around a hidden camera in public, like one disguised as a pen in your pocket or something.
I think it's because it's more plainly obvious if someone is taking photo if they're lifting up a phone to do it. Someone taking a photo with glasses can be done more covertly.
It’s easy to see if someone has a phone or camera pointed at you. If someone’s looking in your direction while wearing glasses, you would not typically expect them to be recording you.
There's a big difference between holding up a phone and taking a picture and just... existing with glasses and having everything recorded without your knowledge.
People care more about the illusion of privacy than actual privacy itself.
Even if we banned smart glasses, we'd still see ever-expanding networks of privately owned cameras that record every movement you make. We'd still have networks of ring cameras and similar devices. We'll still have ever-increasing use of AI to sort and categorise the content.
Privacy is dead. Smart glasses are just an uncomfortable reminder of this fact, and banning them without addressing the over-arching issue is similar to sticking our collective head in the sand.
Privacy doomerism sucks. You can fight (and win) some battles without winning everywhere—in fact that’s how life works in general.
Just because we haven’t yet beaten ALPRs doesn’t mean I want some dickhead recording me at a hot spring without me knowing. Having both things to deal with is worse than having just one.
One mans doomer is anothers realist, I guess. I'm 40, and every year I've been alive I've had less privacy than the one that preceded it and I see no reason to believe that trend will continue. I'm open to compelling arguments if you think I'm wrong.
Maybe if we started with the "strap cameras to the face of the population" plan we'd all have been less inclined to act like frogs in rapidly warming water. Alas.
If you don’t like the trend, why are you trying to convince people to stop fighting it? Make it make sense. It’s like telling doctors not to bother because everyone’s eventually going to die anyway.
I would understand if you felt this way privately, in fact I can relate to that.
Why isn't the publishing of the captured video banned? If you want to upload content involving someone else (not just in the background) in it then you should need consent.
If it were made illegal then news journalism, documentary filmmaking, sports broadcasting (crowds), street photography, and police-body camera footage would become extinct almost overnight.
Laws will seldom work 100% of the time, but I profoundly disagree with your implied attitude. "They don't cover this future case, so we shouldn't do anything now".
A temporary measure.
Knowing the current regime they will use years & millions on comittees, reports, reviews, expert groups and all kinds of bureaucratic wage labor I don't have english vocabulary for. And then, the EU, which we a not a member of, decides everything behind our back.
Norway chose to not join the EU but still be subject to many of its requirements. It can still change that - it can still seek to become a proper member, or it can seek to cut ties.
> The ban could apply to parks, beaches, museums, shopping centres, schools, daycare centres, healthcare facilities, gyms and public events.
True - many places where photography and video recording by people and organizations is already done on a broad scale with both smartphones and infrastructure cameras.
> "We do not want a society where people worry about being recorded without their knowledge, photographed, or filmed in places and situations where they are accustomed to not being monitored"
This seems similar to how much of East Asia requires a “click” sound from camera apps, to prevent surreptitious photos, or how some US states require both parties to consent when recording audio of a conversation. There’s plenty of precedent for privacy laws related to public recording, across the world. And they don’t have to be perfect—the goal is to limit access to casual snooping and creepshots, and to ensure that those who habitually violate privacy can be prosecuted if caught.
Just because you’re in public doesn’t mean it’s ok to take secret upskirt photos, film in the gym showers, etc. There actually is a certain level of privacy expected in public.
Banning harmful behavior (like secretly recording someone) is pretty defensible and not all that controversial. Banning the mere possession of generic tools that could potentially be used to engage in harmful behavior is a lot more dubious. It requires infringing the rights of a bunch of innocent people merely because they might use that freedom to do something wrong.
I agree in part. Rather than a full ban, it makes more sense to require manufacturers to implement obnoxiously obvious “tells” (blinding LED plus sound perhaps), and to ban commercial businesses that remove these features. No need to ban possession. For DIY creepers a ban on the behavior is enough, they will get caught eventually.
The point is to ban widespread normalization of tools that make invasion of privacy easy. You can go find a shirt button spy cam on Aliexpress, but if you get caught wearing it then everyone knows what you’re up to. Wearing one in certain places could be taken as criminal intent.
(I don’t think restrictions like this would work in the US without an amendment, but I think we’re long overdue for a privacy amendment to clarify some things.)
Only issue with that is that enforcing it requires you to make open source smart glasses illegal, since open source software cannot be used to coerce users the way closed-source software can.
It's illegal to transmit without a suitable radio license or sell products that do, but they still don't forbid the sale of electronic components you could build a radio with. In that case, they just confiscate your radio and fine you, if you're caught transmitting without a suitable license.
Perfect enforcement isn’t required, the intent is to prevent normalization. Laws against murder don’t prevent all murders either.
Someone wearing weird 3D printed camera glasses is going to be obvious. Someone with the skill to disassemble a tiny glued together smart glass frame, bypass any hardware protections, and flash a custom OS will be rare, and they’ll get caught anyway when they “accidentally” wander into the women’s locker for the third time.
I don't want people to have to know how to solder to install an open source OS on their personal computing device. That sort of thing should be normal and easy.
So yeah, I guess as long as you're okay with a law like that potentially becoming very easy to bypass then I don't have a problem with it. But I think once you start going down that path most, people aren't going to be satisfied with leaving it at "very easy to bypass".
> This seems similar to how much of SE Asia requires a “click” sound from camera apps
I live in "SE Asia" - specifically Vietnam - and I've never heard of such a law. I just looked it up and the two countries that come up are Korea and Japan, neither of which are in SE Asia.
I 100% agree with this outlook. People that have ignored encroaching surveillance for decades at this point are finally concerned once we start suggesting we literally strap them to the face of a sizeable chunk of the population.
Personally, I gave up years ago. People don't care about actual privacy, they just care about the illusion of it.
I see what you did there.
Is it the added convenience of the glasses?
Targeting smart glasses specifically seems to narrow though, because there are obviously many other ways to carry around a hidden camera in public, like one disguised as a pen in your pocket or something.
Even if we banned smart glasses, we'd still see ever-expanding networks of privately owned cameras that record every movement you make. We'd still have networks of ring cameras and similar devices. We'll still have ever-increasing use of AI to sort and categorise the content.
Privacy is dead. Smart glasses are just an uncomfortable reminder of this fact, and banning them without addressing the over-arching issue is similar to sticking our collective head in the sand.
Just because we haven’t yet beaten ALPRs doesn’t mean I want some dickhead recording me at a hot spring without me knowing. Having both things to deal with is worse than having just one.
Maybe if we started with the "strap cameras to the face of the population" plan we'd all have been less inclined to act like frogs in rapidly warming water. Alas.
I would understand if you felt this way privately, in fact I can relate to that.
If you have to defend smart glasses based on a technicality, that doesn't reflect very well on the glasses.
It's the same as a buttonhole camera used for spying. The differentiator (vs a phone or SLR or similar) is that its primary function is concealed.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-51137379
Laws will seldom work 100% of the time, but I profoundly disagree with your implied attitude. "They don't cover this future case, so we shouldn't do anything now".
True - many places where photography and video recording by people and organizations is already done on a broad scale with both smartphones and infrastructure cameras.
> "We do not want a society where people worry about being recorded without their knowledge, photographed, or filmed in places and situations where they are accustomed to not being monitored"
... I think we're gonna need a bigger ban
Just because you’re in public doesn’t mean it’s ok to take secret upskirt photos, film in the gym showers, etc. There actually is a certain level of privacy expected in public.
Edit: corrected SE Asia to East Asia.
The point is to ban widespread normalization of tools that make invasion of privacy easy. You can go find a shirt button spy cam on Aliexpress, but if you get caught wearing it then everyone knows what you’re up to. Wearing one in certain places could be taken as criminal intent.
(I don’t think restrictions like this would work in the US without an amendment, but I think we’re long overdue for a privacy amendment to clarify some things.)
Someone wearing weird 3D printed camera glasses is going to be obvious. Someone with the skill to disassemble a tiny glued together smart glass frame, bypass any hardware protections, and flash a custom OS will be rare, and they’ll get caught anyway when they “accidentally” wander into the women’s locker for the third time.
So yeah, I guess as long as you're okay with a law like that potentially becoming very easy to bypass then I don't have a problem with it. But I think once you start going down that path most, people aren't going to be satisfied with leaving it at "very easy to bypass".
I live in "SE Asia" - specifically Vietnam - and I've never heard of such a law. I just looked it up and the two countries that come up are Korea and Japan, neither of which are in SE Asia.
Personally, I gave up years ago. People don't care about actual privacy, they just care about the illusion of it.