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Why you’ll want everyone you know to wear Google Glass

lehrblogger.com

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Re: Why you’ll want everyone you know to wear Google Glass

#31

Post by thaumaturgy »

I've stayed out of this debate so far for various reasons, but there is a specific privacy issue with Glass that I haven't noticed anyone else raising yet.

It is inevitable that Google Glass will have real time facial recognition, whether Google wants them to or not (http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-06/11/google-glass-...). Or, that a similar product offering that capability hits the market once Glass becomes popular enough.

If you are a felon, or have ever been arrested on an accusation of a serious crime, that is a future that you're not excited about. If you've ever been in the media -- even on a purely local basis -- for anything salacious, that's not a future you can be excited about. You can probably get Google Image Search results for "[your county] arrested" (worked for a couple of counties that I sampled at random); there are websites like mugshots.com that republish mug shots and details of the arrest.

As it is now, the only thing that ex-cons and others in similar situations have going for them is the relatively short attention span of the public and a vanishingly small support network of other ex-cons and people willing to give them another chance.

The rest of society, for the most part, regards them as unequal citizens (and in some cases, sub-human, depending on the offense).

An apartment complex might choose to rent to an ex-con for some reason; once the technology is available, management will have to deal with outraged neighbors and many apartment complexes will simply stop renting to them. An employer might give someone a job but not disclose that person's personal history to their co-workers; if the technology becomes ubiquitous enough, that will stop being an option too.

I don't think the technology itself is inherently bad. But, I don't think society has yet reached a point of maturity where it can gracefully handle this.

Re: Why you’ll want everyone you know to wear Google Glass

#32

Post by BrainInAJar »

conformal wrote: post #30
fear91 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many Googlers here, you know :) You either talk about G positively or not at all. The glass is the most Orwellian thing I've ever heard of. The only thing that could beat it would be direct brain interfaces, capable of stealing thoughts.

it is amusing that you mentioned this because google's business strategy is to steadily erode the privacy of all human beings and monetize it at each step. they can try to dance around this all day with marketing and it doesn't matter. it's only a matter of time before the glass hardware has an attachment that reads your mind so you exert even less effort than currently, e.g. blinking. google will then take that data…

I've made it a point to migrate away from Google services. I don't want what they're selling.

Re: Why you’ll want everyone you know to wear Google Glass

#33

Post by abruzzi »

lehrblogger wrote: post #8
abruzzi wrote: post #5

This may be right, but to me, as a doubter, I'm well aware of potential benefits, but my creepiness radar comes from the feeling that there is a point where recording becomes too intrusive. If I'm in a public bathroom and someone is snapping photos, that it's too intrusive. And the problem with glass is that you never know wether its just sitting on someone's head, or it is recording. I don't see the benefits of ubiq…

Our existing mobile devices can be used in similar creepy ways, but we've learned to discern between the postures people use for taking photos with their phones, and their postures for doing everything else with their phones. We certainly pay an "attention tax" to maintain an awareness of nearby devices, but we've gotten over the creepiness. It's possible that we'll learn similar patterns for Glass. While we won't kn…

Exactly. I think it boils down to the fear that we don't know when the camera is active. When we're holding out our smart phone in a certain way, people know we're taking a photo. Google could build glass with a bright flashing on-air light, which would help, but absent obvious physical gestures, we'll wonder wether the device has been rooted to disable the light.

Don't get me wrong, I do think its unfortunate, because there are real positive sides to the device, and you touch on them in your blog, but for me, unless I feel better about the hair raising on the back of my neck, I'm going to be hesitant to accept the devices. (Caveat: I'm a bit of a privacy nut, that has never used Facebook, twitter, uses brivate browsing whereever possible, uses SMIME to encrypt most of my emails, etc., so my experience may not be very indicative)

Re: Why you’ll want everyone you know to wear Google Glass

#34

Post by izendejas »

bigiain wrote: post #22
sismoc wrote: post #9

I don't want to be recorded. At All!! No video, no audio, no photographs. NOTHING!! Take your Glass somewhere else. I am off-limits.

I also don't want to be recorded by convenience store or shopping mall cctv, or by repo man ANPR, or by red light / speeding cameras. We've lost that argument though. What I would like to see, is for there to be appropriate responsibility assumed by the people taking advantage of the privilege of recording everything. I eagerly await the first few court cases where someone drunkenly records and uploads to youtube som…

I'm genuinely curious: why don't you want to be recorded at malls et al?

What's the difference between such surveillance and a security guard wondering around looking for suspicious activity and/or protecting shoppers/businesses?

Surely, it can be abused, but it can also help protect "suspicious" individuals from being profiled/targeted maliciously by such security guard, for example.

What if you were hit an intersection and said cameras helped to identify the individual who hit you and then ran, would that change your mind?

I don't think surveillance is the problem as much as who does it and the laws they implement.

Re: Why you’ll want everyone you know to wear Google Glass

#35

Post by arrrg »

nhayes-roth wrote: post #27
sologoub wrote: post #20

This debate about knowing when Glass is recording puzzles me a bit. We have an established way to indicate that a device is recording across both camcorders and webcams on laptops - a small light indicating when the camera is on. On most camcorders it's a small red light. On Macs it's green. Glass has an indicator towards the back that is poorly visible. Just move it to the front and maybe make it a little brighter.…

Personally, I no longer trust these established indicators. I now feel justified in assuming that backdoors are built into most systems and that Glass could be recording at any time, without my approval and without any indication.

It’s possible to wire the LED directly to the power of the camera. That way if the camera receives power the LED is also on. There is no way to change this behaviour in software. (This is how the indicator lights on Macs and presumably many other indicator lights are wired up.)

Re: Why you’ll want everyone you know to wear Google Glass

#38

Post by gnosis »

conformal wrote: post #30
fear91 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many Googlers here, you know :) You either talk about G positively or not at all. The glass is the most Orwellian thing I've ever heard of. The only thing that could beat it would be direct brain interfaces, capable of stealing thoughts.

it is amusing that you mentioned this because google's business strategy is to steadily erode the privacy of all human beings and monetize it at each step. they can try to dance around this all day with marketing and it doesn't matter. it's only a matter of time before the glass hardware has an attachment that reads your mind so you exert even less effort than currently, e.g. blinking. google will then take that data…

"google's business strategy is to steadily erode the privacy of all human beings and monetize it at each step"

I wonder if most Googlers have faced up to this reality yet?

Or if they simply don't care, or think the money, perks, and "cool stuff" that they get to work on makes it all worth it?

Re: Why you’ll want everyone you know to wear Google Glass

#39

Post by bigiain »

izendejas wrote: post #34
bigiain wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also don't want to be recorded by convenience store or shopping mall cctv, or by repo man ANPR, or by red light / speeding cameras. We've lost that argument though. What I would like to see, is for there to be appropriate responsibility assumed by the people taking advantage of the privilege of recording everything. I eagerly await the first few court cases where someone drunkenly records and uploads to youtube som…

I'm genuinely curious: why don't you want to be recorded at malls et al? What's the difference between such surveillance and a security guard wondering around looking for suspicious activity and/or protecting shoppers/businesses? Surely, it can be abused, but it can also help protect "suspicious" individuals from being profiled/targeted maliciously by such security guard, for example. What if you were hit an intersec…

The difference is "recording". Or, more specifically, recording and never deleting the recording.

I guess it isn't so much the surveillance itself that bothers me, its three things: 1) the idea that technology now allows surveillance to be ubiquitous, 2) that the security guard's observations don't attempt to identify me and observations don't "persist" across multiple visits/venues, and 3)that all the surveillance data is archived forever - ready to be abused/sold/profited-from whenever somebody thins of a way to make a buck out of it (or, more paranoid/cynically, invents new retroactive laws then goes looking for past indiscretions…)

Re: Why you’ll want everyone you know to wear Google Glass

#40

Post by contingencies »

It's sad when the best they can do is conjure up the twentieth consecutive year of "natural feeling video conferencing is right around the corner!" as an excuse for allowing marketeers to use techno-fetishism to push omnipresent corporatized surveillance in to society and public spaces. (The video conferencing argument is a failure and will remain such: people prefer telephones, and it never feels natural.)
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