Meta wants to make people transparent

According to reports, Facebook company Meta wants to build a facial recognition function into its camera glasses. The idea: The company’s smart glasses should detect people on the street and compare them with a database in order to identify them. Or in short: Meta is working on a gigantic biometric surveillance tool to make people transparent. A commentary analysis.

Meta wants Install facial recognition function in camera glasses

• As the New York Times cited a internal meta document reports, the company could equip its camera glasses with a facial recognition function this year. According to the paper, corresponding plans were already in place years ago. Now the company apparently sees a good time to implement this. Meta’s smart glasses are under the brands Ray Ban and Oakley. You have Camera, microphone and speakers and are also available in Europe. Most recently, the company presented glasses that can show information on a small display in the glass.
• The initial plan was initially Camera glasses with facial recognition for the visually impaired to make accessible. The current project apparently goes far beyond that. Meta’s smart glasses are intended to capture faces via camera and compare them with a database – either with your own social media contacts or public profiles. Harvard students demonstrated last year that this is possible. However, Meta is working on a solution that will provide direct access to its own platforms such as Instagram and Facebook without external tools.
• The Facebook group had to develop a similar facial recognition function that automatically tagged platform users in photos. discontinued a few years ago due to data protection criticism. At that time, the US judiciary sentenced the company to a billion-dollar fine. The background was that Meta collected biometric data on a large scale without consent. However, the new function should not allow any person to be identified, but rather users of the meta platforms.

A gigantic surveillance instrument

The fact that Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg is turning the facial recognition screw again is not a technical coincidence, but rather strategic calculation. Because what sounds like science fiction has long been ready for the market – and is obviously well timed politically. While election campaigns and global crises dominate the headlines, the company is secretly testing gigantic surveillance instrument and the limits of data protection.

But while Meta sells facial recognition as a function via its camera glasses, a test run for permanent biometric monitoring is running in the background. The However, strategy is transparent. The Facebook Group apparently wants to initially establish this extremely dangerous technology on the market under a socially beneficial pretext.

But help for the visually impaired could quickly escalate into a comparison with social media contacts and ultimately possibly a recording of every public profile. The inconvenient truth is therefore: As soon as a facial recognition function is included in everyday glasses, there is hardly any turning back.

The Vision of Mark Zuckerberg is that an AI looks at millions of faces through millions of eyes. But it is also the responsibility of potential users to prevent such a surveillance infrastructure. In the worst case scenario, the last privacy concession could disappear as soon as acceptance increases – namely the LED display that shows when the glasses are recording.

Voices

• In the internal meta documentobtained by the New York Times (€), states, among other things, the planned facial recognition function: “We will launch in a dynamic political environment in which many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us will focus their resources on other issues.” One Company spokesperson told Business Insider (€): “While we often hear about interest in this type of feature – and there are already some products on the market – we are still exploring various options and will take a considered approach.”
• Alexandra Reeve Givens, CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technologytold Straight Arrow News: “The use of this type of facial recognition technology will become a privacy and surveillance nightmare. People shouldn’t have to hide and evade to avoid being monitored. These systems pose a real threat. People in sensitive locations – be it a doctor’s office, a nightclub or a place of worship – shouldn’t have to fear being secretly scanned and identified.”
• The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in a notice to the Federal Trade Commission, an independent consumer protection and competition agency in the US: “This feature would pose serious risks to privacy, security and civil liberties and cause widespread harm to the public. It must not be allowed on the market. This feature would be easily abused and put Americans at risk of stalking, harassment, doxxing and worse.”

On the way to a surveillance state?

In Europe the General Data Protection Regulation applies regulatory bulwarks on biometric data collectors like Meta. Because companies in this country have to obtain user consent and prove that they are earmarked for a specific purpose – and that’s a good thing.

In the USA the situation is different. Since the second Trump administration at the latest, regulations for Big Tech have played an increasingly diminished role in the United States. Specifically means: The Not only can platforms do almost anything they want. Some of their technologies are even used or misused by the government itself.

The US administration is currently threatening the AI ​​company Anthropic with repression if it does not release its AI software for the US military and civilian surveillance. Meanwhile, the scary thing about the meta plans is that the technology already works.

It could turn the USA into one unprecedented surveillance state if the government hijacks the data. Not to mention what happens if hackers capture them. Or what Meta himself does with it.

Because the company can theoretically use its camera glassesRecord every encounter, every conversation or even entire daily routines. Fortunately, society and users ultimately decide whether they want to indulge in such technology.

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