Harvard Students Innovate with Meta Spectacles to Highlight Privacy Concerns
In a groundbreaking project, two Harvard students, Anfu Nguyen and Ken Ardaivio, have developed an innovative tool called I-XRAY that utilizes Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses to gather personal information about individuals in real-time. This technology suite combines smart glasses, facial recognition software, and large language models to identify people, their locations, and even their phone numbers, raising significant privacy concerns in the process.
The I-XRAY system operates by having a user wear the Ray-Ban smart glasses and stream live video to their Instagram account. The technology then analyzes the video feed to identify faces, using facial recognition models such as PimEyes and FaceCheck.id to match those faces with available online data. Once identified, the system leverages large language models to extract personal details, such as names and addresses, from public databases like Fast People Search.
Nguyen and Ardaivio emphasize that their project, initially conceived as a side endeavor, aims to raise awareness about the potential for privacy invasion in public spaces. Despite the alarming implications of their findings, they assert that the tool was not designed for misuse.
Privacy issues surrounding smart glasses have been a topic of debate, especially after the launch of Google Glass, which faced backlash for its ability to record without consent. In response, Meta incorporated a privacy light in their smart glasses that illuminates when recording occurs. However, users have reported that this feature can be easily overlooked, particularly in bright or crowded environments.
As technology continues to evolve, the implications of tools like I-XRAY underscore the urgent need for discussions around privacy rights and the ethical use of advanced technologies.
