Meta wants its AI glasses to seem less intimidating. Its AI strategy says otherwise.

Meta AI glasses have a growing reputation as scary technology. The company hopes to change that perception by announcing an update that will turn off the camera if the LED light that indicates the glasses are being recorded is disturbed.

The move appears to be an endorsement of consumers’ feelings that glasses are not just fun, fashionable items, happily promoted by Kylie Jenner, but have serious implications for consumers’ privacy: They can be abused as surveillance tools.

However, as Meta implements new protections this week, the company is also pushing products and features that ask users to give up more of their privacy to the company.

Whether that’s training its AI on your photos, enabling AI features using your personal content unless you log out, or exploring ways to continuously record or use biometric facial recognition, Meta’s vision for the future seems to always depend on the collection of your personal data.

In its blog post about the new camera security feature, the company backs itself up, noting that “no other camera brand has done this and we’re proud to be leading the industry effort.” However, Meta also admits that this step was necessary because some people were using tape to cover the LED light, which forced Meta to adapt its technology to disable recording when the LED is off.

Presumably, those same AI glasses will then use “sophisticated attempts to modify or destroy the imaging LED,” explains Meta’s announcement.

In other words, Meta confirms that some people using AI glasses have hidden agendas – ie the desire to record situations or people (usually women) without their consent.

Apart from this, the company is reportedly testing a prototype of AI glasses that “can continue to collect sound while taking pictures every few seconds,” sources recently told the Financial Times.

Meta’s blog posts about the glasses include attempts to ease people’s fears about device privacy by answering questions like “who can see the photos and videos I take on my glasses?” Meta responds by promising, “You, and only you — unless you choose to share them.” However, Meta’s privacy policy explained that any image you share with Meta AI can be used to train its AI.

All the while, the company is facing numerous investigations and lawsuits regarding the privacy violations of the Meta AI glasses. One case comes after Meta famously canceled a contract with a foreign technology company after some of its Kenyan employees said they had to watch explicit content, such as sex, nudity, and people using the toilet, while training Meta AI using videos of Meta AI’s human glasses.

These are by no means Meta’s first incidents of privacy breaches or security measures, either.

Undoubtedly, Meta’s reputation for privacy has been tarnished for years after numerous leaks and lost lawsuits about its lack of child safety measures and desire to grow at all costs. There are books written by whistleblowers documenting its alleged abuses, not to mention previous major privacy disasters, such as the Cambridge Analytica data scandal and others.

After the Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018, Meta now emphasizes on its Privacy Progress Update page, “Since 2019, we’ve invested heavily in people, products, and technology to continue to evolve our strong privacy system.”

Still, the company is pushing ahead with what many would consider privacy-infringing ideas. Case in point: On the same day it announced new protection for Meta glasses, it shared that Meta AI can now use anyone’s public Instagram photos to create AI photos, unless you opt out.

It also built features to use Meta AI on photos in your Camera Roll that you’ve never shared and implemented less-than-optimal privacy controls in its Meta AI app, leading users to their behavior by exposing their embarrassing searches.

This is the same company that Apple won’t partner with due to privacy concerns, that records its employees’ keystrokes to train its AI, and plans to sell targeted ads based on data from your AI conversations.

So, while LED protection on AI glasses may be a necessary feature, consumers clearly still have plenty of reason to remain skeptical of how social media will use their photos and data, especially in its extensive AI programs.