Meta rolls out privacy fix for ‘pervert smart glasses’ after backlash

Meta’s smart glasses have been under intense fire over growing privacy concerns as demonstrated in viral videos showing them used by pranksters and pick-up artists to film other people without their consent.

As a result of lack of privacy fixes, the smart glasses earned the bad reputation of “pervert glasses.”

To make the matter worse, previously users discovered that they could easily bypass safety features by starting a recording and then covering the external capture LED light.

Hence in the wake of intense backlash, Meta is launching a software update that will automatically stop the camera if the LED light is covered during an active recording.

This recent update follows a previous update from a month prior targeting physical tampering with the capture light, alongside a newly published patent exploring physical mechanisms to disable the camera if the glasses are tampered with.

Alex Himel, Meta's vice president for augmented reality, on its Threads platform said, “We have an update coming to increase the reliability of the capture LED on our AI glasses.”

“The camera won't start recording if the LED is blocked, but some people try to bypass this by starting a recording and then covering it up. A fix for this is starting to roll out – the camera will now stop working if the light is covered during a recording.”

Alongside the technical fixes, the parent company of Instagram has launched a new marketing campaign explicitly highlighting the recording light to reassure the public that it clearly signals when photos and videos are being captured.