AI glasses used as harassment tool - Digital Rights Chair

The Chair of Digital Rights Ireland and Associate Professor at UCD's Sutherland School of Law, Professor TJ McIntyre, has said the main risks associated with AI glasses so far involve "quasi-sexual abuse" and their use as a "harassment tool".

Politicians in Norway are planning a new law that would temporarily ban smart glasses in certain places, with the government saying it is concerned people could be photographed, filmed or audio-recorded without their knowledge.

Smart glasses are wearable, internet-connected devices that combine a traditional eyewear with digital features like cameras and speakers.

But there is growing concern about how they are used - often to secretly record people without their consent.

Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Prof McIntyre said that they are also being used as a "harassment tool".

He said that these are essentially "covert, stealth devices" and are being used in that way.

"You've seen people filming in places like beaches, filming people in bikinis ... it's been used in places like swimming pools sometimes, other public places like gyms and that's why sometimes you see this referred to as the 'pervert glasses'," he said.

"Now that's obviously a particular subset of the problem, but more generally then you have this being used as a harassment tool."

Prof McIntyre said a study of US use in the last month showed that children in American schools who had the glasses were using them "almost invariably to target girls, going up to them asking for names, numbers and the like, and then posting footage online when the girls declined their advances."

He added: "The point is that these are essentially stealth, covert devices. They're being used for that purpose because that's what they're designed to be used for. It's very different to traditional photography with a camera where it's visible or even photography with a phone where it's obvious that somebody is doing something.

"You do have a kind of a token nod to transparency in that some of these cameras have little lights that indicate when they're filming, but in practice those are either very unobtrusive or they can be easily disabled by the users."

Norway plan 'the correct approach'

In relation to Meta's LED light that blinks if the device is taking a photo or video, Prof McIntyre said, "there's a thriving market already of people who will, for a small fee, disable these or show you how to disable them just by drilling them out, covering them with epoxy and so on."

He said Norway’s plan to ban the devices is "the correct approach", adding that "you can't have a situation where this becomes pervasive and normalised and then try to fix the problem after the fact.

"The Norwegian ban is really codifying something that's happening already, so lots of places have already indicated that smart glasses can't be used, leisure centres, the court service in Ireland has indicated they can't be used in Irish courts," he said.

"I've banned them in my own lectures. You see pubs, for example, the entire chain of Wetherspoon pubs has recently banned them.

"The point is that people want to be sure that they're not going to be secretly monitored in this way," he added.

Prof McIntyre said people are right to demand to know if the glasses are banned in certain settings.

"I don't see how people could be comfortable in the gym or the swimming pool otherwise."

He said there is a need for wider rules around the technology, which could be implemented in several ways.

"The Data Protection Commission should be looking into the wider issues associated with this, including the way in which this data is being streamed back to Meta and the uses that Meta is making of that, which is a separate problem," he said.

"I think we should look to the Norwegian experience here," he added.