PRIVACY CONCERNS AND THE META RAY-BAND SMARTGLASSES

Will these be the end of privacy? Josh Edelson/Getty Images

In a shocking turn of events, someone was able to use a new high-powered tech product for evil. Two Harvard students paired the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses with facial recognition software to rapidly identify strangers and compile their personal information from the internet to highlight the privacy concerns that are getting unboxed with easily accessible consumer tech. In a video posted to X, AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio explained how they built I-XRAY. The program uses the glasses to capture images of random people on campus and at a train station, identify them through a publicly accessible facial recognition search site like PimEyes, and then use a large language model (LLM) to trawl the web and compile the person’s information. Nguyen and Ardayfio could access people’s addresses, the names of their parents, and photos in mere minutes, and even approached unsuspecting people using the info they collected to make them think they had met before. The creators said they would not release the code for this program but created it to highlight how it’s possible to build invasive tech with recent advancements like smart glasses and LLMs. When 404 Media approached Meta for comment about the project, it said that similar information gathering could be used with any camera. Meta’s smart glasses have a small light that comes on when the wearer is recording, but many people report it being hard to see in crowded spaces and bright lighting outside. Nguyen and Ardayfio said they chose the glasses specifically for their inconspicuousness.