[LINK] Who needs Google Glass?

[Frank O'Connor]

Well, 

Yeah ... but ...

Up until recently it's been pretty obvious when somebody has been pushing a lens in your face or a microphone to your mouth. Even whacking a smart phone in someone's face or up to your eye is pretty obvious.  And there have been protections ... for example on beaches, in toilets, in spaces where privacy is expected ... to protect one from intrusion. There are certain venues now where you simply cannot take any camera of recording device.

But what happens with the 'always on' Google prescription glasses, or sunglasses, or these 'sports glasses' or 'spy glasses' as they call them? That's the question.

I mean, when you wear it, and it has other justifications and purposes, and its so unobtrusive and ubiquitous, and it's way hard to distinguish from its less capable, bland and non-threatening counterparts ... well, that raises issues. And for making HD 'cam' or 'tele synched' copies of movies, performances and copyrightable material they can't be beat ... aside from the camera shake thingie that will no doubt be licked by image stabilisation in higher end models (and eventually all models in a couple of years).

Paparazzi will love them, your average obsessed fan will be delighted, private detectives will go into ecstasy at the very notion of them, the perverted will be onto them like a rash - hours and hours of HD recordings on a single card with little likelihood of detection. They'd never miss a thing.

I suppose the point is that laws, regulations and policies could easily be circumvented by these puppies ... by referral to the primary and other functions of the glasses or worn device ... and a reasonably capable lawyer could argue their way out of their clients responsibility unless the offences are made specific. (e.g You record anything in this venue, in this context, of non-consenting, or minor, or lawful privacy threatened, subjects then you are guilty of an offence ... even if the devices used to so record have multiple lawful capabilities and purposes in other contexts, and if you require it to be on at all times, and to have said recording device up and running to fulfil such capability or purpose.)

(Personally I'd specify that the offending devices be only available in a garish and gaudy colour that alerted all and sundry to their capabilities ... but that would never fly, especially when the devices become as pervasive as they are likely to, and will probably be a fashion statement in their own right for young adopters.)

At any rate ... I still think the issues need to be addressed. Personally, I don't know that I'd like to live in a world where my every move and word and behaviour is likely to be recorded with impunity.

Just my 2 cents worth ...
---
On 30 Jan 2014, at 10:47 pm, Janet Hawtin <janet at hawtin.net.au> wrote:

> On 30 January 2014 22:10, Frank O'Connor <francisoconnor3 at bigpond.com> wrote:
> Yeah, they'd probably be terrific for that ... and I am a bike rider.
> 
> But they'd also be terrific for your average voyeur, and any number of other people who want to invade your personal space and privacy for various nefarious reasons.                      :)
> 
> Hence the probable push for controls over their use, admissibility as evidence under certain restricted and controlled circumstances, and a whole host of other issues that will need to be ironed out.
> 
> In a world of guilt by statistical correlation actual personal video might be handy?
> All of these things depend on which end of the telescope dataset or camera you're at. 
> photographer, data owner, subscriber, subject, object, 
> it is probably the relations that need space rather than the specific tools?
> 
> Just my 2 cents worth ...