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I am part of the problem and recently started turning them on after realizing they were proving to be very useful inputs when using chatbots with connectors to tools that can see the transcripts. It's made scribing notes mostly a ritual and not a practical benefit.

Before I turned it on I asked my team if they had any objections. Silence for eight seconds before saying if anyone was uncomfortable objecting in the group they could reach out to me individually. No one ever did. The only request was that everyone internal get copied on the notes so they could correct them if needed.

These are company decisions to have these connectors and privacy choices. It's their data and their risk. There has never been an illusion that anything said, written, or done at work is private from the company. At home I partake in none of this.

Automatic transcripts of online meetings are amazing: it means that you can just shoot the shit for half an hour and then have Claude bang out a deck and MVP for review. And no one has to waste time and attention on making notes.

Even better if it's a feedback session or people have notes and comments. You can have them all mock-implemented before you even send out the summary.

I've been in meeting where people turn off AI notes when real stuff gets discussed and turn it back on after. Seems like a good compromise as long as you trust that it's not going to get logged

> Even 1:1 conversations between direct managers and colleagues.

You can ask someone to turn it off.

Get your coworkers together and form a union.

I'm not even kidding. An individual has no protection, if it's workplace policy you can be fired for not following it.

If employees collectively challenge the policy an employer can not legally retaliate against collective action.

One problem with this is that it's very easy to think of ways that having a recording of what was said in a meeting might benefit one or more of the participants, by letting them provide evidence later that another participant is lying about what was said in that meeting. An AI recording of a meeting might well protect your interests in court later.

It's fine, a leak of your meeting to a potential competitor could result in as much as another meeting. ;-(

Hilariously enough the answer is return to the office. I coordinate with my manager to do our 1:1s on days we're both in the office and I know we're not alone.

>>Is there anything that I can do to minimize my exposure?<<

author a study that truthfully demonstrates an increased productivity, and by extension, reduction of costs, that appears in the absence of surveilance.

perhaps an ABC test of production under obvious surveillance, obvious lack of surveillance, and advisement of incidental surveilance at any time. this should be cross sectional and longitudinal, perhaps an exit survey to categorize the different productivity groups, such as we took longer because we knew we would have to work at a desk under a camera when we were done; vs the we could do it faster because, we knew we wouldnt be nagged about ergonimics, kinefficiency, or surruptitious movements.

A right to privacy the European Convention on Human Rights which every European country other than Belarus is a signatory to. It is directly incorporated into UK law and in all signatory countries appeals can be made to the European Court of Human Rights.

Some governments ignore it, pretty much all governments have tried to find ways to limit the right to privacy. It has not been terribly effective. As far as I can tell constitutional protections in a few countries (like Germany) have been far more effective.

A right is like a trademark. It must be defended, or it loses its power.

Lately, a German colleague shared with me why they are so focused on privacy. For the dark events that happened in Germany from 1933 to the end of WW2, they used data from a variety of sources that were available at that time. There’s a serious fear (now more than ever in the past) that if an authoritarian regime rose again it would have access to so much data to persecute minorities or even people with different opinions that it would seriously be a nightmare. This puts often overlooked initiatives like GDPR in a completely different light to me.

Is this binding on and inside every member country?

The UN, a global entity that isn’t worth the paper its existence it’s written on. Probably the best ever example of the term “paper tiger”

If you are in a country which has some decent legal system and institutions.

And even then it’s a crap shoot

This UN declaration doesn’t seem to establish an enduring definition of privacy.

Hayek offers a significant observation that things that work among small orders, like a family, don’t work when applied to a whole city. It speaks to the gap between a single police officer seeing something and a city-wide camera crime detection network.

  Part of our present difficulty is that we must constantly adjust our lives, our thoughts and our emotions, in order to live simultaneously within different kinds of orders according to different rules. If we were to apply the unmodified, uncurbed rules of the micro-cosmos (i.e., of the small band or troop, or say our families) to the macro-cosmos (our wider civilization), as our instincts and sentimental yearnings often make us wish to do, we would destroy it. Yet if we were always to apply rules of the extended order to our more intimate groupings, we would crush them. [Friedrich Hayek, The Fatal Conceit]

"We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,"

This is a quote from an internal Meta memo about how they would plan the launch of these creepy glasses. There are too many crises that seem more pressing to a lot of people.

There is already a big backlash with these glasses, they've become colloquially known as "perv glasses" and it's been proposed to make them illegal to use in some places!

With the rise of cellphone video posted online I don't think it has the same visceral reaction it once did around the Google Glass era.

I think there are many reasons some but not all imo:

- The price difference. Calling a person who dropped $1,500 on a "tech glasses" in 2013 a glasshole made sense. It felt like someone with more money than sense. Meta glasses are $299 today that's just small gadget money so there is no "too much money, little sense" aspect

- Tech went 100% mainstream. It wasn't exactly an exclusively nerdy or geeky thing in 2013 anymore like the 90s or early 2000s, but there was still certain "Too much tech means you are a socially incompetent neckbeard". Today the biggest socialites online often do a tech haul style videos about the latest tech gadgets they got.

- Cameras exploded everywhere. Everyone has watched footage from Ring, GoPro, traffic lights, security cams, court cams, dashcams, police body cams, etc. Plenty of regular people got home cameras too and find it very useful to keep an eye on pets, backyards, etc. Plenty of very regular people have stories about how their cameras saved their ass in one occasion or another. There has been plenty of high-profile news stories about how a Tesla or a Ring camera helped solve a crime or catch a horrific murder or criminal.

- The proliferation of prank YouTubers in the 2010s. Even though most of them were paid actors, going out and acting as a douch and recording it became a mainstream. Kids love it, and despite the "backlash" they were getting millions regardless

- It doesn't matter how you feel about meta glasses or google glasses, you will have reports online of people who tell you how those products changed their life for the better because it helped them overcome some adversity, or protected them in a victim situation or literally saved their life in some situation

Because the frog as been continuously boiling for a while now, so even if it generates a negative reaction it will be smaller than before.

For some reason in the last ten years, people have gone from being critical of corporations to favoring them. I think these companies have become so huge, and they have gotten away with so much, that people have resigned themselves to being at their mercy.

At the time there were two camps: tech-optimists who saw the value in a device that brought the power of the internet on top of your view of the world, and the other camp who worried about privacy or the "creep factor" and believed that outweighed any potential benefit.

When Google Glass came out that latter group had more sway culturally and more political power to ban such things. They don't have that as much anymore but that could swing back in their favor again

It is a generational thing. Gen Z grew up with an internet where it was normalized to share your complete life online, create posts under your real identity, and so on. Give it 1 - 2 generations, and perv glasses will be seen as not intrusive.

> nothing will change until people start holding their representatives accountable

Which itself won't change. The term for holding representatives accountable is "lobbying", which the public believes is an abhorrent act!

> and start voting for people that will actually do something about it.

The thing is, who wins an election matters little. There are always exceptions, and we've definitely seen exceptions, but most representatives are there in good faith. However, they are not mind readers. They can't do anything aligned to the people until the people start lobbying to make it known what they want — but the people won't do that because it is seen as abhorrent behavior.

> This wont happen anytime soon

Especially when appears likely that those companies are responsible for making the people believe that it is unacceptable to lobby. They have the marketing budgets and know-how to keep pushing that narrative until the end of time.

"No" has been replaced with "Maybe Later".

The Internet was in many ways a better place before data capitalism came along so the likes of Google and Facebook could monetise.

We had email and it worked just fine. You got an account via your ISP or paid a small amount for a separate service and perhaps a custom domain that you controlled yourself. Centralising this with the likes of Google is not progress.

We had more content than anyone could ever consume in a lifetime on the Web even back then. It was mostly created by people interested in sharing for personal satisfaction and perhaps the enjoyment of a good discussion that followed or by organisations that benefitted from sharing that information freely. It wasn't done with a direct profit motive based on metrics like page views. We didn't have endless AI spam designed to host endless auctioned ad spots diluting the good stuff.

So here's my proposed privacy-friendly alternative business model: You don't get to harvest personal data for reasons unrelated to whatever products or services you're providing to willing consumers and if you do then we throw you in jail. I'm pretty sure the Internet would find a way to continue providing the functionality that is actually useful. I'm pretty sure the signal/noise ratio online would be much better too.

the constitution is about what the government is allowed to do, and we do have those

No. The only solve is to start voting and voting for people that actually fix these problems instead of bowing to corporate interests over people interests.

it would be interesting to see if the "camera light has been tampered with" 'privacy mechanism' could be remotely triggered by some carefully timed application of electromagnetic energy pulses ;)

Well, cell signal jammers are illegal. I could see the possibility of something like a Meta-produced device that could be set to disable recording by Meta glasses in the vicinity. That seems different in scope. But lol on that.

Exactly this. Anyone who wears these smart glasses are just selling themselves for a negative return. Like meta should be giving these glasses away given how much data they harvest. Instead they convince rubes and pervs to actually pay for it.

The response I tend to see is "why should I care? I'm boring. I'm not doing anything wrong."

There is no profit in privacy, but there is in exploiting people’s secrets.

What? Govts wants everyone (except politicians) to have no privacy.

I’m not disputing the legality point but I don’t believe you can point to even one person who was jailed for using such a device.

So perhaps “face jail time” is not accurate.

Give it time. I am sure the Israelis, the Ukrainians, and the Russians will be world leaders in this type of jamming technology I have a feeling infrared light jamming cameras and sound frequencies beyond human hearing are going to be key components of this new technology. I’m ready, and so is my checkbook.

Sadly that's not the case, or at least not in Germany. A judge actually refused to block the sale of the glasses because it was considered that the LED were sufficient warning. Sure, you can still use them covertly and releasing material often requires a waiver, but that's true of smartphones too.

There's a case right now (brought forward by the HateAid organization) arguing that these types of glasses should be forbidden, but I'm not optimistic that they'll succeed.

Expected an anti nuisance streamer app by now. Just playing ad reels and copyrighted music above and below human hearing levels. Since algo bots will usually scan that high/low and bury videos for whatever is considered an infraction.

People in Europe install surveillance cameras all over and threaten with the police when you tell them you don't consent being recorded. When you go to the police reporting the cameras, the police tells you to get a lawyer and open a civil case.

So on the contrary I'd say... you want cameras? We'll go all in.

> US Constituion understands privacy as self-sovereignty. As in I am the boss of me.

It doesn't. The Bill of Rights does, and it was pushed by the anti-federalists. It is also constantly eroded, and the entire package put together in the context of slavery, a group of people born with no rights. It certainly doesn't have an opinion about whether you have an intellectual property right over facts about yourself.

The Constitution isn't a metaphysical document that can be confused by this sort of psychedelic reasoning about some sort of natural property rights. It is a document that is enforced by Congress and the Judiciary. If they both agree that you shouldn't have any privacy, you won't have any privacy. Neither have been restraining the Executive since 9/11; and they've only barely restraining the states and local municipalities, and not always in a good way.

Your privacy rights come from the psychedelic reasoning of the Judiciary, and can be taken away if they switch drug preferences. It has been decided that privacy rights are written in shadows* cast by the constitution. Really. And only since 1965 - you might be older than your constitutional privacy rights.

[*] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penumbra_(law)

If you are about to comment on it, why not read the article? Why leave it to chance whether your contribution will be signal or noise?

In the article, EEF discusses the currently emerging issue of not being able to consent to other people's always-on wearable technology in the context of the broader problem of our diminishing ability to speak openly. It ends with a clear message on how to oppose such developments in a constructive, meaningful way.

> Simultaneously - I own my words, either written or spoken. This isn't really all that different from copyright, and I'm rather surprised we don't more regularly bring that reasoning to bear on this issue. If I give them to you in a private conversation, then those words are for you to hear. If you record them without my consent, then you're violating my (copy)right. If a company takes those words without my consent, then that company is violating my copyright.

The copyright situation is interesting, at least under US law, because is most cases where someone on the street records you speaking you will not copyright. That's because of a loophole in the way the copyright statute works.

People commonly believe that when the US changed from copyright coming into existence when you register your work they switched to it coming into existence as soon as your create the work, but that is not correct. 17 USC 102(a) tells us that copyright subsists in works that are

>> [...] fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

But what does it mean to be "fixed" in a tangible medium of expression? For that we must turn to 17 USC 101:

>> A work is “fixed” in a tangible medium of expression when its embodiment in a copy or phonorecord, by or under the authority of the author, is sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration.

Their recording of you is not "by or under the authority of the author" so is not a fixation, so your work is not copyrighted yet.

Congress recognized this loophole and partly closed it in 1994, with 17 USC 1101, which is titled "Unauthorized fixation and trafficking in sound recordings and music videos". This closes it in the case where you are, say, a street musician and someone records your song which is not yet copyrighted because you have not yet recorded it or written down the sheet music or tab. It gives such a musician essentially the same rights and remedies they would have if they had copyright.

But that is explicitly for music. Unless you start singing everything you say in public it won't help you. Even if you do that, those devices that just immediately transcribe what they hear probably would not be covered, because no matter how creative a melody you come up with to sing "I'll have a medium Big Mac meal with a coke please" to, they will just be recording your lyrics. US requires a certain level of creativity in a work for it to be copyrightable and "I'll have a medium Big Mac meal with a coke please" is probably not going to make the cut.

You best defense, if you want to have a chance of federal copyright applying, is to wear something of your own that records you. Then your words are fixed under the authority of the author (you) as soon as you speak them, and so if they do meet the bar for being copyrightable they will be copyrighted.

There is also state common-law copyright law to consider. Federal copyright law preempts state copyright law, and with it so easy to get federal copyright you don't really tend to hear much about state copyright law.

However, that loophole that makes federal copyright law not attach also makes it so state copyright law is not preempted for works that fall into the federal loophole. State common law copyright tends to be more generous or expansive than federal copyright, so this is probably your best copyright bet.

This suggests that you may want to actually avoid recording yourself, to avoid any chance of getting federal copyright and thus having state common law copyright law preempted.

I did a little searching, and apparently whether you should record yourself or not has been debated and analyzed in other contexts like stand-up comedy performances and public lectures.

The AI tech companies already violated perhaps millions of copyrights.

They should have quite a hefty fine to pay.

> There is no expectation of privacy in public spaces.

The devices the article is talking about don't stop recording when you exit a "public space". They record everywhere.

> There is no expectation of privacy in public spaces.

As always, scale matters, as does the purpose of the surveillance and the affiliation of the surveilling party. This comment of mine from last month (and the document linked in the footnote) will be good reading for you. [0] Also keep in mind that private entities can be legally considered to be agents of the State... depending on how they and the State are conducting themselves.

[0] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50027322>