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Philly courts will ban all smart eyeglasses starting next week

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Re: Philly courts will ban all smart eyeglasses starting next week

#61

Post by linkregister »

danpalmer wrote: post #46
plorg wrote: post #16

My local county is currently in a dispute with the local bar association because they want to upgrade the courthouse security cameras and the sheriff wants to add audio capabilities. This includes to parts of the building just outside the courtroom that counsel will frequently use for brief asides with their clients (due to lack of other private rooms). The county seems to favor adding the microphones and pinky swear…

I assume the sheriff would be totally fine with putting up signs in that area saying "audio and video recording in progress" then right? That would somewhat address the issue, and should be entirely uncontroversial to both sides.

There is an asymmetric impact to the defense. In our adversarial legal system, we must not disadvantage one of the sides unilaterally.

Re: Philly courts will ban all smart eyeglasses starting next week

#62

Post by eks391 »

autoexec wrote: post #56
plorg wrote: post #16

My local county is currently in a dispute with the local bar association because they want to upgrade the courthouse security cameras and the sheriff wants to add audio capabilities. This includes to parts of the building just outside the courtroom that counsel will frequently use for brief asides with their clients (due to lack of other private rooms). The county seems to favor adding the microphones and pinky swear…

What's the security reason they need this? How many times has a security camera failed to do its job because it didn't have audio? What crimes do they thing they are going to solve? Are people breaking into the courthouse wearing masks but screaming their own names?

[flagged]

Re: Philly courts will ban all smart eyeglasses starting next week

#63

Post by zmmmmm »

simonw wrote: post #21
zmmmmm wrote: post #20

I couldn't read the article but am curious what the definition of "smart" is. Because if that is the exact wording then it seems to be extremely broad and probably capture some unintended cases. These kind of blanket bans are going to pose some real problems for the tech because people who wear prescription glasses will often get their prescription built in. So you can't take them off - you need them to see. And then…

I think it's a very bad idea for a prescription glasses wearer to have only a single pair of glasses where that single pair has a built in camera.

It's not just "having" them though, it's carrying them everywhere and constantly swapping over to your dumb glasses as you walk in and out of places that don't like the smart ones.

Which is sort of my point: when main purpose is convenience, if you have to do something inconvenient to use it then you killed the thing altogether. So if manufacturers want this to fly, they need to sort out the privacy question before there's a sign on every public place saying "no recording glasses". If I was in Meta's position, i'd be going to regulators to ban glasses without an externally controlled hard shutoff mechanism.

It might seem a trivial thing currently, but some of these factors will be the ultimate determinants of exactly how much utility humans can get out of AI. If it can't see what you can see, it can't help you with that.

Re: Philly courts will ban all smart eyeglasses starting next week

#64

Post by neya »

paxys wrote: post #19
qha34h wrote: post #8

I don't see how these glasses are legal at all. While filming in public places is allowed in the US, commercial use of that material is not. For example, you cannot just use public material with recognizable people in advertisements without their consent. Meta is likely to use material from these spy devices to build real world networks and use it commercially. These "glasses" should be outlawed. The only useful purp…

So should smartphone cameras be illegal as well? Or cameras of every kind?

Depends, would you walk around recording everyone with your phone out right onto their faces without their consent?

Re: Philly courts will ban all smart eyeglasses starting next week

#65

Post by zmmmmm »

aiiane wrote: post #24
zmmmmm wrote: post #20

I couldn't read the article but am curious what the definition of "smart" is. Because if that is the exact wording then it seems to be extremely broad and probably capture some unintended cases. These kind of blanket bans are going to pose some real problems for the tech because people who wear prescription glasses will often get their prescription built in. So you can't take them off - you need them to see. And then…

The important part of the article: > From then on, any eyewear with video and audio recording capability will be forbidden in all of the First Judicial District buildings, courthouses, or offices, even for people who have a prescription. Other devices with recording capabilities like cell phones and laptops continue to be allowed inside courtrooms but must be powered off and stowed away. It's defined as having record…

That's actually not too bad - it leaves space for devices that do have cameras or microphones for other reasons, as long as they don't persist the output. So you could do real time recognition for assistive devices etc.

Re: Philly courts will ban all smart eyeglasses starting next week

#66

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

danpalmer wrote: post #46
plorg wrote: post #16

My local county is currently in a dispute with the local bar association because they want to upgrade the courthouse security cameras and the sheriff wants to add audio capabilities. This includes to parts of the building just outside the courtroom that counsel will frequently use for brief asides with their clients (due to lack of other private rooms). The county seems to favor adding the microphones and pinky swear…

I assume the sheriff would be totally fine with putting up signs in that area saying "audio and video recording in progress" then right? That would somewhat address the issue, and should be entirely uncontroversial to both sides.

That doesn't sound like a good compromise at all. First practically speaking, you can't just leave the court building to discuss with your client if they're in chains, and it's super inconvenient based on the layout of many courts. Second, this becomes the excuse for adding audio and video surveillance everywhere, with the excuse that you know about it, so it's okay. Third, considering audio can pick up things like jokes, irrational things said in anger, or just one's mumblings to oneself, it very quickly becomes the excuse to haul in anyone you don't like by misconstruing their words. The fact that it was brought by law enforcement tells you they are looking to use it against people.

Re: Philly courts will ban all smart eyeglasses starting next week

#67

Post by plorg »

danpalmer wrote: post #46
plorg wrote: post #16

My local county is currently in a dispute with the local bar association because they want to upgrade the courthouse security cameras and the sheriff wants to add audio capabilities. This includes to parts of the building just outside the courtroom that counsel will frequently use for brief asides with their clients (due to lack of other private rooms). The county seems to favor adding the microphones and pinky swear…

I assume the sheriff would be totally fine with putting up signs in that area saying "audio and video recording in progress" then right? That would somewhat address the issue, and should be entirely uncontroversial to both sides.

The whole point of contention is that one of the spaces is, effectively, the only convenient places to have a quick, heretofore private, conversation. No one is confused over where the things are.

Re: Philly courts will ban all smart eyeglasses starting next week

#68

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

neya wrote: post #64
paxys wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So should smartphone cameras be illegal as well? Or cameras of every kind?

Depends, would you walk around recording everyone with your phone out right onto their faces without their consent?

If you're a TikToker, absolutely

Re: Philly courts will ban all smart eyeglasses starting next week

#69

Post by simoncion »

zmmmmm wrote: post #63
simonw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a very bad idea for a prescription glasses wearer to have only a single pair of glasses where that single pair has a built in camera.

It's not just "having" them though, it's carrying them everywhere and constantly swapping over to your dumb glasses as you walk in and out of places that don't like the smart ones. Which is sort of my point: when main purpose is convenience, if you have to do something inconvenient to use it then you killed the thing altogether. So if manufacturers want this to fly, they need to sort out the privacy question before t…

> [W]hen main purpose is convenience, if you have to do something inconvenient to use it then you killed the thing altogether.

Funny. Because UV-activated darkening lenses inevitably fail in a half-darkened state, I have a pair of always-dark prescription sunglasses and prescription -er- clearglasses. I can tell you from personal experience that it's inconvenient to carry both and swap between the two as my location and the time of day changes, and yet... somehow there's still a solid market for always-dark prescription eyeglasses.

Weird, innit?

Re: Philly courts will ban all smart eyeglasses starting next week

#70

Post by theshrike79 »

verandaguy wrote: post #36
serious_angel wrote: post #5

I am not into Facebook/Meta nowadays, bet the technology is so lovely freaking magnificent... Back in the days, these were in Sci-Fi and dreams only... // https://www.ifixit.com/News/113543/theres-groundbreaking-wav...

It can be simultaneously true that smart glasses are a technological marvel and a privacy nightmare. It's also important to consider that while many places have some legal framework along the lines of "no reasonable expectation of privacy in public spaces," there's a social-psychological gap between that and the presumption of being constantly recorded, be it by other private individuals or governments. Because of th…

As a full-time glasses-wearer and sci-fi nerd, I want smart glasses SO BAD. Just running the equivalent of YOLOv8 on your glasses identifying objects in your view real time would be very very cool.

But as a privacy-conscious developer, I want exactly zero connection to any FAANG cloud service in my smart classes.

So until someone releases a pair of smart glasses I can get with my prescription and, for example, use my phone for "local" compute with no forced cloud access, I'm going to skip the whole category.

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