Meta’s smart AI glasses, developed in partnership with Ray-Ban, are being rocked with recent reports of outsourced workers viewing intimate images and videos of users, sparking concerns from the Information Commissioner’s Office. 

The AI-powered glasses allow users to capture text, speech, images and video footage using built in cameras and AI features, and are designed to integrate with daily life. They are built to allow users to document and enhance activities, hands-free. 

However, their ability to record continuously and upload data for processing has raised growing concerns about how much personal information is captured, and who can access it. 

An investigation by Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) and Goteborgs-Posten (GP), confirmed that intimate imagery captured by the glasses from within people’s homes, whether that be on the toilet or whilst getting undressed, was being shared with Meta and their partners. 

Meta has employed Sama, a third-party based in Kenya, to support development of their systems. Sama was tasked with labelling content to enable AI to interpret imagery, and to review interactions between AI and users to ensure queries were sufficiently answered. 

Interactions captured by the glasses may occasionally be reviewed to assess product quality and improve customer experience. The company added that this is outlined in its privacy policy and that users must agree to their data being included in these datasets. 

Meta suggested that whilst sensitive imagery may be included in the dataset, there are controls in place to protect people’s privacy, such as the blurring of people’s faces.

The firm said they take people’s data protection very seriously and are consistently enhancing protections for the customers, according to reporting from the BBC. 

Investigation Raises Privacy Concerns 

Users do have to initiate recording to capture content which will then allow it to be processed by Meta’s AI. Meta stipulates in its terms and conditions: “In some cases Meta will review your interactions with AIs… and this review may be automated or manual (human).”

However, it is within the ICO’s remit to question if Meta’s basis of data processing is adequately communicated to consumers so they can make an actively aware choice in what consent they provide for personal data processing.

The ICO told the BBC that “devices processing personal data, including smart glasses, should put users in control and provide for appropriate transparency”. 

“Service providers must clearly explain what data is collected and how it is used,” the watchdog added. 

They will request that Meta share information clarifying that it is meeting UK data protection regulations. 

The imagery which has been shared with Meta ranges in degrees of sensitivity, but much of it has raised serious privacy concerns.

Cases reported in the Swedish investigation have ranged from people’s banking details being shared, to seeing people watching pornography, to glasses being left in rooms deliberately to allegedly capture people undressing without their knowledge or consent.

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Meta has suggested that there are protections in place to avoid misuse such as the glasses having a light which turns on when recording to inform people.

The investigation appeared to expose work-arounds, however,  with people able to either accidentally or maliciously record people without their knowledge or consent. In several cases, Sama data annotators informed the Swedish journalists that it was evident that users did not realise their information and content was being shared. 

Although concerns about the smart glasses have existed since their introduction in 2021, the investigation has illuminated new revelations which can better substantiate users’ privacy concerns.

“Unless users choose to share media they’ve captured with Meta or others, that media stays on the user’s device,” Meta said in an updated statement to the BBC. 

“When people share content with Meta AI, we sometimes use contractors to review this data for the purpose of improving people’s experience, as many other companies do”.

It remains to be seen what the social media titan will tell the data protection watchdog.