Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses have a huge privacy issue

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Two Harvard students developed an alarming example of how smart glasses could use face recognition technology to quickly reveal people’s identities, phone numbers, and addresses.

The most frightening thing is that the demo includes current, easily accessible technologies, such as Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and public databases.

A project dubbed I-XRAY by two Harvard students, AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, provides real-world examples of how Meta Ray-Bans can be used with some creative changes can be used to dox people in real-time.

With great smart glasses come great privacy concerns

A video posted by AnhPhu Nguyen on Twitter/X shows the I-XRAY project in action. The technology broadcasts footage to Instagram using the Meta smart glasses.

A computer application then monitors the stream and applies artificial intelligence to recognize faces. These photographs are then entered into public databases to retrieve names, addresses, phone numbers, and other details. This information is then transmitted back into a phone app.

In the demo, Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, the other students working on the project, use the glasses to identify various classmates, their addresses, and the names of relatives in real time.

Perhaps more disturbing, Nguyen and Ardayfio approach strangers on public transportation, professing to know them based on information obtained from the technology, which is both horrifying and impressive.

And if college students can turn you into Charles Augustus Magnussen from the Sherlock TV series right now, it will be interesting to see what the future of smart wearable devices holds. It’s inevitable that the arrival of these types of devices will only raise more privacy concerns.

Meta even has a dedicated privacy page that goes over all the details of its Ray-Bans in an effort to better educate its customers. It encourages users to “respect people’s preferences” and uses clear gestures or voice controls when recording video, live streaming, or shooting images.

What do you think about this gigantic privacy issue? Do you think Meta and other smart glasses makers should actively block access to such possibilities? Let’s talk more below in the comments, or ping us on our Twitter or Facebook.