Smart glasses: a tool for extortion?

Last April, we discussed the minefield that this new product category—smart glasses—would have to navigate, raising concerns about the balance between innovation and respect for privacy. Indeed, these AI glasses are nothing more than hidden cameras, already used to cheat on exams and even capture videos in public places, shared on social media without the consent of the people filmed. Quiet on the set! The BBC recently conducted an investigation into this last point, reporting the accounts of women discovering on social media exchanges they had with a man who had approached them. The perpetrator allegedly demanded money in exchange for deleting the videos. All's well that ends well, as TikTok deleted the offending videos and banned the account for violating its harassment rules, but the internet is a vast territory, and nothing prevents this kind of thing from happening again. It remains to be seen what real solutions smart glasses manufacturers—Apple is launching next year—will offer to mitigate these problems.