Smart glasses have a bad rap right out of the gate and there are two factors in play. The inherent nature of a wearable device that can semi-secretly film people hands-free from the eye-level perspective, and the unfortunate reality that not everyone can be trusted to use them in a moral and ethical way that respects people’s privacy and personal safety.
Whether it’s a fair depiction of the category currently dominated by Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, they haven’t been dubbed ‘pervert glasses’ for no reason.
If and when Apple enters the category, you feel, the long-time privacy oriented company will want to avoid such an unfortunate categorisation – especially if smart glasses are still envisioned to be the long term successor to the iPhone. There’s been talk of Apple swerving video recovering entirely because of the privacy worries, but that’d almost defy the point of releasing a pair of smart glasses in the first place. So it’ll require mitigation.
A new patent filing from Apple might provide insight into the company’s thinking. It’s called “Secure Audio Indicators For Electronic Devices” and it speaks of a sound that plays when a recording is commenced. That’s an alternative, or a likely a compliment to a light that’d signify recording is taking place. Some nefarious sorts have been tampering with those lights or covering them up.
Apple’s patent (via Apple Insider) explains: “Because the information captured by the microphone(s) and/or camera can include private and/or personal information about the user and/or other people around the electronic device it may be desirable to be able to securely control and/or confirm the output of these audio indicators.”
It continues: “In some devices, a visual indicator, such as an indicator light, is provided that can be activated when an input component is in use, to indicate (e.g., to the user of the device and/or to others around the device) that audio and/or video recording is in progress.
“However, in some devices (e.g., compact devices with limited housing space), it may be impractical to provide an indicator light, and/or to provide an indicator light in a way that a user of the device (e.g., and/or others) can see the indicator light when activated.”
This feature might alert the public that a recording has started, but the tone will likely only last for a second at most. Then the wearer could go about their business when in earshot of others. It would also have to be loud enough for people to hear without deafening the wearer.
In a very specific circumstance – say, young woman on public transport being filmed by pervert – this could help with the privacy concerns. Aside from that, not so much.
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