by chwahoo 7 hours ago
I'll confess that I like my Meta Ray Ban glasses: I love using them to listen to podcasts at the pool/beach, while riding my bike, and it's cool to snap a quick picture of my kids without pulling out my phone.
I wish this article (or Meta) were a bit clearer about the specific connection between the device settings and use and when humans get access to the images.
My settings are:
- [OFF] "Share additional data" - Share data about your Meta devices to help improve Meta products.
- [OFF] "Cloud media" - Allow your photos and videos to be sent to Meta's cloud for processing and temporary storage.
I'm not sure whether my settings would prevent my media from being used as described in the article.
Also, it's not clear which data is being used for training:
- random photos / videos taken
- only use of "Meta AI" (e.g., "Hey Meta, can you translate this sign")
As much as I've liked my Meta Ray Ban's I'm going to need clarity here before I continue using them.
TBH, if it were only use of Meta AI, I'd "get it" but probably turn that feature off (I barely use it as-is).
I don't understand how a parent can be OK non-consenually uploading pictures of their children's real faces to an ad driven AI company famous for abusing people's data and manipulating children on their platforms.
I don't get how private businesses allow these. It's as creepy as Google Glass, yet we don't see the same pushback.
Is it because younger people don't care about privacy anymore?
As creepy? It's way creepier than Google Glass.
Yes, the window has shifted considerably since Google glass
they are raybans. glassholes were ugly and quirky.
Google glass was more a victim of it's time, normies weren't used to everyone carrying a camera everywhere back then.
The youths literally do not care from what I observe.
How many people under 25 do you interact with on a day to day basis?
Don't forget the older people, many of whom gladly use Facebook or WhatsApp without a second thought.
Us HN weirdos are some of the last who care, and even we disagree on which tech is creepy. Hard to blame the average Joe for giving up.
I know about 20 and 2 of them are without socials and even smartphones. Its a counterculture
HN is an echo chamber who can't imagine not using some tech. Normal people can...
Those settings are IMO likely not doing what you think they are. Or might be doing strictly, precisely what they say they are.
[OFF] "Share data about your Meta devices to help improve Meta products." doesn't preclude sharing data for other purposes.
[OFF] "Allow your photos and videos to be sent to Meta's cloud for processing and temporary storage." doesn't preclude sending them to Meta's cloud for permanent storage.
Last year they pushed out an update stating if any “Meta AI” is left on, they can access image data for training,
I turned the AI off and used them as headphones and taking videos while biking. After a couple rides, I couldn’t bring myself to put them on because people started to recognize them and I realized I didn’t want to be associated with them (people are right to assume Meta has access to what they see).
Meta Ray Bans, if kept simple, could have been a great product. They ruined them.
Bone conduction headphones let you listen to things while keeping your ears free, and don't upload your childrens photos to The Algorithm
A simple on/off toggle isn't going to prevent them from using your data. If your data is in their server then it's going to be used one way or another. Whether in an anonymous way or shipped to where there are no privacy laws.
After all that has been revealed to us over the past 15 years, it is really disheartening to see people still thinking that setting a few toggles will prevent these companies from abusing them.
Just continues to prove that if you solve a bit of inconvenience for them, people will let you exploit them and their families.
So you believe that you are in control?
I think the most likely case is: this company is labeling images from meta AI use from people who opted-in to share their data with Meta.
It's certainly possible that it's something much more surprising / sinister, but there is a fairly logical combination of settings that I could see a company could argue lets them use the data for training.
I'm also very certain that few users with these settings would expect the images to be shown to actual people, so I'm not defending Meta.
What in Meta's history would lead you to give them the benefit of the doubt like this?
Perhaps I'm ignorant.
I know some of the criticism of Meta: many people don't like the way their products are optimized for engagement. I've heard about their weird AI bots interacting on their platform as if they were people. And I know people of all political stripes have had complaints about content moderation and their algorithm.
But all of that is within the bounds of the law and their terms of service.
None of it would remotely approach something like: bypassing the well-advertised features in the glasses that show when the camera is in use and secretly recording things to train AI. It's hard to imagine any company's lawyers approving something like that. (this sounds like what many commenters believe is happening)
FWIW, I suspect this is the relevant section of the Privacy policy:
> "When you use the Meta AI service on your AI Glasses (if available for your device), we use your information, like Media and audio recordings of your voice to provide the service."
from: https://www.meta.com/legal/privacy-policy/
if so, "to provide the service" is doing a lot of work
You missed the cases where the facebook app ran a local webserver on your smartphone which the facebook ad trackers would send data to to be able to track you across all websites, breaking GDPR laws and circumventing browser third-party cookie controls?
Meta has consistently and repeatedly shown an absolute lack of respect for user privacy for basically as long as they’ve existed as a company. I’m honestly not certain there’s anything fully out of the question as far as things they might do, regardless of what their policies might say.
Two examples that are top of mind…
They exploited browser vulnerabilities not unlike malware to track users’ behavior across the web: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/06/protect-yourself-metas...
They bought a “privacy” VPN app and used it to harvest data, then abused Apple’s enterprise app deployments to continue to ship the app after it was banned from the app store: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo
I'm not an expert on all of Meta's historical criminal activity, but just going back a few months:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/jury-finds-meta-...
Optimized for engagement? I guess heroin is "optimized for engagement" too.
Please disclose your affiliations
Hah, not meta or anything related
> there is a fairly logical combination of settings
I think it's anything but logical, if users (like yourself) have no idea what those settings are, as evident from your previous post.
Your setting is off cloud media until the company arbitrarily turns it on for you. Seems crazy now, won’t be ten years from now. They’re just boiling the frog all the way.
Do you take them off in the bathroom? Or if the wife is feeling spontaneous?
They're sunglasses so I mainly wear them outside.
why do you think taking them off turns them off?
The wife or the glasses?
You might enjoy these conveniences now, but this is just the pre-enshitification stage. Soon enough, to take advantage of those features you will have advertisements integrated into your view, and your data will be scraped for whatever its worth to Meta.
wow, what a cnut