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A Swedish investigation has revealed that contractors employed by Meta in Kenya have accessed and reviewed highly sensitive first-person footage from Ray-Ban smart glasses, raising serious concerns over consent, data handling, and privacy violations, prompting regulatory scrutiny and legal action.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A Swedish investigation has prompted renewed scrutiny of Meta\u2019s Ray-Ban smart glasses after reports that workers at a Nairobi-based subcontractor viewed highly sensitive first\u2011person footage captured by wearers of the device. According to reporting by Svenska Dagbladet and G\u00f6teborgs\u2011Posten, contractors examined clips showing people in intimate situations, raising fresh questions about consent and data handling for wearable cameras.<\/p>\n
An anonymous source speaking to the newspapers described scenes of people \u201cgoing to the toilet, or getting undressed,\u201d adding \u201cI don\u2019t think they know, because if they knew, they wouldn\u2019t be recording.\u201d Contractors told investigators they had also seen explicit sexual activity and financial information in material supplied for labelling.<\/p>\n
Privacy advocates highlighted the broader implications of training artificial intelligence on such material. John Davisson, deputy director of enforcement at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told Decrypt that wearers cannot provide consent on behalf of bystanders and warned that using footage containing identifiable faces, voices and other personal data to train models compounds privacy risks. \u201cThe wearer of the glasses cannot consent on behalf of all of the people they are encountering as they go through the world using these glasses,\u201d he said. \u201cYou are compounding the privacy and data protection concerns, because you’re taking people’s personal information and using it to build your own model.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regulators have begun seeking clarity. The UK Information Commissioner\u2019s Office told the BBC it will request information from Meta about how the company complies with data protection law and stressed devices that process personal data must allow transparency and user control. European authorities have also questioned whether the glasses\u2019 recording indicators and other safeguards adequately protect bystanders.<\/p>\n
Meta\u2019s own documentation notes that content sent to Meta AI can be reviewed \u201cautomated or manual (human)\u201d and that the company and its vendors may use user data to improve services, conduct research and ensure policy compliance. Meta has said privacy filters are applied to remove identifying information before human review, a claim that contractors and critics say does not square with the material they were shown.<\/p>\n
The newspapers identified the Kenyan subcontractor involved in the work as Sama, whose employees in Nairobi manually annotate video, image and speech data for AI systems. Contractors interviewed for the investigation said they were instructed to describe and label every image and felt unable to question assignments for fear of losing their jobs. \u201cThere are also sex scenes filmed with the smart glasses. Someone is wearing them, having sex. That is why this is so extremely sensitive,\u201d one contractor told reporters. \u201cWhen you see these videos, it feels that way. But since it is a job, you have to do it,\u201d another said. \u201cYou understand that it is someone\u2019s private life you are looking at, but at the same time, you are just expected to carry out the work. You are not supposed to question it. If you start asking questions, you are gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The revelations have led to legal action. Plaintiffs in a new lawsuit allege Meta misled consumers by marketing the Ray\u2011Ban Meta glasses as \u201cdesigned for privacy, controlled by you\u201d while allowing sensitive footage to be reviewed by offshore contractors, and claim breaches of privacy law and false advertising. Meta has not issued a substantive comment on the litigation, and the company did not respond to Decrypt\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
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