For the past several months, Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses have been facing a lot of flak for its lack of user privacy features. Several reports emerged that the smart glasses some times recored audios and videos without the owner’s explicit permission. Each pair of Ray-Ban AI glasses feature white light called a capture LED that blinks to signify when content is being captured for the device’s gallery app on the companion phone.
For a photo, it blinks briefly, while for a video, it will continuously blink for as long as the user is recording. The capture LED has no off switch. However, some miscreants used to damage the camera’s LED light, so that they can be able to record private photos and videos of people without their consent. Some have been used to harm the reputation of ex-partners by leaking their private videos to social media platforms.
After taking cognisance of the issue, it released an update with privacy security patch to all RayBan smart glasses. If it notices that the camera recorder indicator of the device has been tampered with, the camera will not turn on. It can only be activated when the issue is fixed by an authorised service and the genuine indicator component has been restored on the smart glasses.
Now, a Polish developer Pawel Szydolwski irked over illegal surveillance by criminals with Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses, has created a novel mobile app that can detect any similar AI glasses. He is calling it ZuckOff. Whenever it detect such Bluetooth-based smart wearables it will notify users to beware of such devices nearby.
It is capable of detecting Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta, Snap Spectacles in addition to display glasses and headsets. In the app, Quest and Vision Pro, are named in the log but never flagged, as the latter block the vision of the user and person infront of him/her will be able to see the massive headgear. This is free to download app with in-app purchase available. It can be downloaded on both the Google Play and Apple App Store.
Culled from https://www.deccanherald.com/
