Meta just released an emergency update to stop creeps from disabling the recording light on its smart glasses. That’s great. But the real problem isn’t just Meta — it’s that when I asked Google AI how to bypass this new security feature, its AI gave me a cheerful step-by-step DIY guide to becoming a creep.
All I asked was a simple theoretical question, and Google’s algorithm practically handed me a soldering iron and a ski mask.
Both its AI overview and Gemini quickly reveal that Meta’s update is going to be the first of a lot of times Zuck & Co. will be left playing an on-going game of whack-a-mole with this problem. And given peeping tom Meta glasses mods are now a business, hackers and modders will view this as an obstacle course rather than a hard stop.
So rather than just re-report the news you’ve been seeing, I want to go into what else needs to change to truly get rid of this peeping tom behavior once and for all — starting with AI companies putting a block on guiding people how to get around it, and extending into changing the laws to stomp it out.
A bigger shift is needed
I won’t labor the point too much here, but while a software update and taking down modders' services on its own platform is a start, relying on a trillion-dollar tech company to police itself never quite works out the way you think.
Much more needs to be done on a legislative and hardware level:
- Kill the power, kill the camera: Governments need to pass laws mandating that smart glasses cannot function without a physical, hardwired, un-bypassable indicator light. If the circuit to the LED is broken, the power to the camera sensor must be physically cut. Similar to how cars must have seatbelts, this should just be a thing by law.
- Treat Etsy modders like wiretappers: Meta’s busy banning these modding businesses from Facebook Marketplace, but that’s just a drop in the bucket compared to what I’ve found on the likes of Etsy and Shopify, as well as the dark web. Lawmakers should treat businesses who modify smart glasses like this in the same way they treat businesses that sell illegal wiretapping equipment.
- Update the “peeping tom” laws for the digital age: Currently in the U.S. and U.K., peeping tom and voyeurism laws are heavily tethered to the physical location of the victim, rather than the deceptive intent of the perpetrator. These laws need to be modernized to penalize covert, disguised or altered recording devices in any space.
Outlook
I can’t lie, I do rather like wearing smart glasses for the convenience of their features. But that doesn’t make me blind to this massive problem, and rightly so, people are mad after reading the same stories of secret filming that I have.
Meta’s update is essentially putting a better lock on the door of it all, but it ignores the fact that a crowd of people is still trying to kick the door down. Much like Nintendo Switch’s update that was supposed to stop piracy in 2018 or Apple’s software locks on third party iPhone parts, hackers and modders will eventually find a new way around this.
Maybe it’s wiring a tiny internal LED that tricks the camera into thinking the external light is on? That’s what Gemini said anyway (yikes)! Put simply, tech fixes are temporary, but true privacy protection will only happen when society decides that secret recording is socially unacceptable.
And that starts with the law treating the creators and facilitators of this tech as criminals — not just innovative tinkerers or innocent content creators.
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