Are Your Ray-Ban Smart Glasses Spying on You? Meta Shifts AI Privacy
Meta's Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are a popular wearable, but they haven't been entirely free of concerns since their launch, primarily revolving around Meta's handling of user privacy and data. Now, the company is rolling out a new policy adjustment that will affect how it collects data through these spectacles.
In an email sent to Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses (review) users (via The Verge), the company announced the privacy policy change. It highlights two key adjustments: how Meta AI will interact with the camera and the storage management of voice recordings.
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Ray-Ban Meta's Camera is Always On with "Hey Meta"
The first change involves the hands-free use of Meta AI, which will now automatically enable the camera when the "Hey Meta" voice command is used. This means that every time you summon Meta AI, the camera will immediately turn on as well. Users can only disable camera use in conjunction with the "Hey Meta" command by turning off the voice command entirely.
Meta attempts to alleviate concerns about this change by stating that photos and videos captured using "Hey Meta" are not used to train their AI models. However, the company added that this policy will change if users share the media to social media platforms like Instagram, cloud services, and Meta AI itself, which is an optional action. Alternatively, users can disable the "Hey Meta" command or delete these interactions within the app.
Meta Will Train Its AI with Your Audio
The policy update also covers the storage of audio recordings and voice transcripts when using Meta AI. All audio recorded with Meta AI will be stored by default, and Meta states that this data may be used to train their AI to improve its products and services.
Simultaneously, Meta is removing the option to disable the storage of voice recordings and transcripts to a connected phone. Instead, users will only be able to delete audio files through the Settings menu in the Meta Ray-Ban app.
Meta did not provide a specific reason for these changes to the Ray-Ban Meta glasses privacy policy. However, it aligns with the trend of AI companies leveraging the vast amounts of user data they can collect to train their AI models and subsequently improve their products and services.
Of course, users will still have the option to disable these data collection methods when using the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. You can still manually snap photos and videos, but this may impact the hands-free experience of the device. Ultimately, users with strong privacy concerns may choose to avoid using these features altogether.
Beyond these privacy-related changes, Meta continues to improve the overall wearable experience. Last year, the company introduced several enhancements to Ray-Ban Meta glasses, including multimodal support, Live AI, and real-time translation.
If you own a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses, what do you think of these changes? Do you find them concerning in your case? We'd like to hear your opinion in the comments.
Via: The Verge Source: Reddit/u/derpiotaku
