Meta’s AI-powered Ray-Bans portend privacy issues

Meta is rolling out an early access program for its upcoming AI-integrated smart glasses, opening up a wealth of new functionalities and privacy concerns for users.

The second generation of Meta Ray-Bans will include Meta AI, the company’s proprietary multimodal AI assistant. By using the wake phrase “Hey Meta,” users will be able to control features or get information about what they’re seeing — language translations, outfit recommendations, and more — in real time.

The data the company collects in order to provide those services, however, is extensive, and its privacy policies leave room for interpretation.

“Having negotiated data processing agreements hundreds of times,” warns Heather Shoemaker, CEO and founder at Language I/O, “I can tell you there’s reason to be concerned that in the future, things might be done with this data that we don’t want to be done.”

Meta has not yet responded to a request for comment from Dark Reading.

Meta’s Troubles with Smart Glasses

Meta released its first generation of Ray-Ban Stories in 2021. For $299, wearers could snap photos, record video, or take phone calls all from their spectacles.

From the beginning, perhaps with some reputational self-awareness, the developers built in a number of features for the privacy-conscious: encryption, data-sharing controls, a physical on-off switch for the camera, a light that shone whenever the camera was in use, and more.

Evidently, those privacy features weren’t enough to convince people to actually use the product. According to a company document obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Ray-Ban Stories fell somewhere around 20% short of sales targets, and even those that were bought started collecting dust. A year and a half after launch, only 10% were still being actively used.

To zhuzh it up a little, the second generation model will include far more diverse, AI-driven functionality. But that functionality will come at a cost — and in the Meta tradition, it won’t be a monetary cost, but a privacy one.

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