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Facebook’s main privacy regulator in Europe has raised concerns over a pair of ‘smart’ Ray-Ban sunglasses the tech giant is now selling. The glasses include a front camera which can be used to take photos and short videos with a verbal cue.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) said on Friday it had asked the tech giant to demonstrate that an LED also mounted on the specs – which lights up when the user takes a video – is a effective way to warn others. that they are registered by the bearer.
Italy’s privacy watchdog Garante has previously raised concerns over Facebook’s smart glasses – but Ireland has an outsized role as a regulator for the tech giant due to location of the regional base of the company.
Facebook announced what it saw as the “next step” on the road to making a pair of “smart” augmented reality glasses a year ago – claiming the initial specs would not include any ARs, but announcing a multi-year partnership with luxury eyewear giant Luxottica, as it apparently anticipated an increasingly feature-rich “smart” eyewear pipeline.
The first Facebook-branded Ray-Ban specs went on sale earlier this month – mostly looking like a standard pair of sunglasses but featuring dual 5MP front-mounted cameras that allow the user to take a video of whatever it is watching and upload it. to a new Facebook application called View. (The sunglasses also contain speakers built into the frame so that the user can listen to music and take phone calls.)
The specs also include a front-mounted LED light that’s supposed to light up to indicate when a video is being recorded. However, European regulators fear that what the DPC calls a “very small” indicator is an inadequate mechanism for alerting people to the risk they are registered.
Facebook has not shown that it has conducted comprehensive field tests of the device to assess the privacy risk it may pose, it added.
“While it is recognized that many devices, including smartphones, can register third parties, it is generally true that the camera or phone is visible as the device through which the recording takes place. , thus warning those captured in the recordings. Along with the glasses, there is a very small light that lights up when recording is in progress. It has not been shown to DPC and Garante that full field tests have been carried out by Facebook or Ray-Ban to ensure that the LED light is an effective means of giving notice, ”wrote the DPC .
Facebook’s main data protection regulator goes on to say that it calls on the tech giant to “confirm and demonstrate that the LED light is effective for its purpose and to launch an information campaign to alert the public about how this new consumer product can result in a less obvious recording of their images ”.
Facebook has been contacted with questions.
A Facebook spokesperson told us, “We know people have questions about new technologies and how they work and it’s important to us that we are part of this conversation. We will work with our regulatory partners, including the Irish DPC as the main regulator, to help people better understand how this new technology works and the controls they have. “
The company also claimed it engaged with the DPC prior to the specification launch and said it continues to do so. He also pointed out that the glasses include a stop switch.
The Irish regulator confirmed that it was informed by Facebook about the eyewear’s data protection compliance ahead of the launch, but Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said he had not been consulted on the product’s specifications.
“We were briefed and detailed on compliance with data protection requirements over the summer, but we were not consulted on product development (design and functionality[s] had already been done when they came to us), ”he said.
“We have shared the information with other DPAs and ourselves and the Garante in particular have raised concerns with Facebook – to do with the operation and field testing of the glasses.”
The specs went on sale earlier this month – at a cost of $ 299 in the US. Facebook has confirmed that they are also currently on sale in Ireland and Italy in the EU and UK.
Over the years, Facebook has delayed (or even halted) some of its product launches in Europe over regulatory issues, including a face tagging feature (which it then reintroduced in another form).
The launch of Facebook’s dating service in Europe was also delayed by more than nine months – and came with some changes claimed after intervention by the DPC.
There are also permanent limits on how Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp can share data with Facebook itself in Europe, again due to a backlash in regulation. Although a lot of data is still flowing from WhatsApp to Facebook in the EU and, as you zoom out, many privacy complaints against the tech giant remain under investigation in the region, meaning these issues are undecided. and not applied.
Earlier this month, the Irish DPC announced its first ruling against a Facebook company (under the EU’s GDPR) – hitting WhatsApp with a $ 267 penalty over transparency breaches. However, the DPC has several unresolved complaints against Facebook or Facebook-owned businesses still on its desk.
In January, the Irish regulator also agreed to “quickly” resolve a 2013 (pre-GDPR) complaint against Facebook’s data transfers outside the EU to the US. This decision is also still pending.
This report has been updated with comments from Facebook and the DPC.
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