Much like Google’s infamous Google Glass smart glasses, Meta’s camera-equipped AI Glasses have turned into a widely derided gadget associated with horrendous public behavior and unwanted surveillance.
The invasive spectacles, which are designed to effectively be indistinguishable from an ordinary pair of Ray Ban sunglasses, have been misused by creeps, pickup artists, “manfluencers,” juvenile pranksters, and even high school bullies.
All that awful behavior has garnered them the pejorative “pervert glasses,” with owners increasingly opting to leave them at home because they’re unwilling to be seen wearing them in public.
Now, a patent Meta filed in February and was granted last week suggests that the company is painfully aware of the privacy nightmare of its own creation. The patent outlines “secure hardware-enforced sensor privacy systems” and a “mute or lock” switch that can shut down “one or more sensors” in consumer-facing products.
Put simply, the company appears to be working on a “kill switch,” as The Independent put it — very likely as a way to get its worst Meta Glasses users under control.
While the patent remains vague about what kind of products it’s referring to beyond listing “augmented reality devices,” it’s not a stretch to assume the move may have been inspired by its recent PR troubles surrounding its smart glasses. The patent includes several depictions that closely resemble its current offerings. (Futurism reached out to Meta for clarification, but did not hear back.)
The patent was filed on February 6, three weeks before Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten published a shocking joint investigation detailing how Meta contractors based in Nairobi, Kenya, were being instructed to review highly sensitive and intimate data recorded by the glasses. The reporting received widespread media attention, reigniting an existing and heated debate.
For now, it remains trivially easy to sidestep Meta’s guardrails. Its smart glasses feature a small LED light on the front to indicate whether it’s recording or not. However, a simple sticker can reportedly render it useless. While the company has implemented software features that will disable the camera if it detects that someone has tempered with it, users are still finding plenty of ways to get around them.
More on the glasses: Meta Furious Over Bombshell Smart Glasses Revelation