Privacy 'impossible' with Google Glass warn campaigners

From The BBC

26 March

Google Glass and other augmented reality gadgets risk creating a world in which privacy is impossible, warn campaigners. The warning comes from a group called "Stop the Cyborgs" that wants limits put on when headsets can be used. It has produced posters so premises can warn wearers that the glasses are banned or recording is not permitted. The campaign comes as politicians, lawyers and bloggers debate how the gadgets will change civil society.

"We are not calling for a total ban," one of the campaign workers called Jack told the BBC in a message sent via anonymised email service Hushmail. "Rather we want people to actively set social and physical bounds around the use of technologies and not just fatalistically accept the direction technology is heading in," he wrote. Based in London, the Stop The Cyborgs campaign began at the end of February, he said, and the group did not expect much to happen before the launch of Google Glass in 2014.

However, the launch coincided with a push on Twitter by Google to get people thinking about what they would do if they had a pair of the augmented reality spectacles. The camera-equipped headset suspends a small screen in front of an owner and pipes information to that display. The camera and other functions are voice controlled. Google's push, coupled with the announcement by the 5 Point Cafe in Seattle to pre-emptively ban users of the gadget, has generated a lot of debate and given the campaign a boost, he said. Posters produced by the campaign that warn people not to use Google Glass or other personal surveillance devices had been downloaded thousands of times, said Jack. Stop The Cyborgs wants to spark debate about the use of augmented reality headsets. In addition, he said, coverage of the Glass project in mainstream media and on the web had swiftly turned from "amazing new gadget that will improve the world" to "the most controversial device in history".

The limits that the Stop The Cyborg campaign wants placed on Google Glass and similar devices would involve a clear way to let people know when they are being recorded. "It's important for society and democracy that people can chat and live without fear that they might end up being published or prosecuted," it said in a manifesto reproduced on its website. "We are not anti-technology," said Jack. "We just want people to realise that technology is a powerful cultural force which shapes our society and which we can also shape."

In a statement, Google said: "We are putting a lot of thought into how we design Glass because new technology always raises important new issues for society. Our Glass Explorer program will give all of us the chance to be active participants in shaping the future of this technology, including its features and social norms," it said. Already some US states are looking to impose other limits on augmented reality devices. West Virginia is reportedly preparing a law that will make it illegal to use such devices while driving. Those breaking the law would face heavy fines. In addition, bloggers are debating the influence of augmented reality spectacles on everyday life. Blogger Ed Champion wrote up 35 arguments about the gadget saying it could force all kinds of unwanted changes. He warned it could stifle the freedom people currently have to enjoy themselves because they know they are not being watched.

[The way I see it the anti-Google glasses campaign has already missed the boat. Privacy in the 21^st Century is already largely a moot issue and will probably only exist in the home within a few decades – if the home will prove to be any bastion against technological invasion that is. People may certainly believe they are not being watched and act accordingly but, more and more, they are being watched (passively in the main) whether they are out on the street – especially in the UK which had more CCTV cameras per head of population than anywhere else on Earth – on in department stores, supermarkets or nightclubs. If it is recognisably a public zone it’s highly likely that CCTV will be installed. You are already being watched. Of course turning it around you could view it as the watched now also being the watchers. When more and more people wear these glasses – and the tech that will inevitably follow it – the more that will be observed and recorded. Accidents, crime and indeed any incident where at least one witness is present will be recorded and uploaded in HD before the person even knows what is happening. This means that suppression of events anywhere in the world will become a lot more difficult. Remember the uploaded video from Iran and other places which showed the world what was really happening in those places that regular media couldn’t get to? Imagine now 100,000 people simultaneously uploading eye-witness reports of demonstrations, police brutality and government crackdowns. Individual privacy might be dying but maybe something more important is being born – the inability of government to hide from its people…..]