This is the second update in less than two months aimed at addressing privacy concerns.
Meta is making yet another modification to its smart glasses in an attempt to stop people from secretly recording others. The company is rolling out a software update that closes a loophole that allowed users to bypass the LED by hiding it while a recording was in progress, according to Alex Himel, vice president of AR at Meta.
This seemingly simple flaw has been highlighted multiple times online in tutorials on how to bypass the light. “The camera won’t start recording if the LED is blocked, but some people try to get around this by starting a recording and then hiding it,” Himel wrote in a post on Threads. “A fix is starting to roll out: the camera will now stop working if the light is covered while recording.”
This change is the second time in less than two months that Meta has released a software update to address privacy concerns and unwanted recordings. The company announced last month that it would disable the glasses’ cameras if it detected that people had physically damaged the recording light.
Meta has tried to get ahead of a growing backlash against the product that has been fueled, in part, by people using the devices to secretly film and harass others in public. Instagram also banned the accounts of some of the people behind these videos. But society has yet to put an end to all the tactics people have found to surreptitiously record others. There’s also a thriving market for inexpensive accessories that can bypass recording light without detection, as Woozad recently reported.
Himel suggested that Meta is still working on additional privacy features for its glasses. “We will continue to roll out updates like this to ensure that the capture light can reliably alert passersby when photos or videos are captured for someone’s gallery,” he wrote. “Only a tiny minority of people try to circumvent these protections, and the fact that they have to go this far shows that our efforts are working.”
