Personally I am offended by Google glass! and I refuse to talk to anyone filming and recording my voice me on Google glass. It's offensive on many levels. Google should work on a social etiquette for their product. Showing you a small screen on your end is your business, pointing a camera toward me, recording me and my voice is my business, and it can only be done with my permission, and it is "no". The only scenario that makes sense is that I am wearing Google glass and I can set a permission on my glass that others can film me with their glass or not.
If you value privacy, you don't want me looking at your private stuff. Don't show it to me or ask me to leave.
But if you allow me to look at you, then I can remember what I see. I am allowed to remember everything that I see and hear, every single last detail, forever, and without requesting permission from anyone.
If I have trouble remembering, I may write it down or draw pictures of what I saw and heard, and also store these forever without asking for permission or forgiveness.
Glass is just a widget that helps me do it slightly more accurately.
The problem isn't that you're remembering it. The problem is that Google is remembering it. Google will make a database of every frame recorded by every Glass device, indexed by the people in it. Now, everything I do in the presence of a Glass user is cataloged for Google to pull up and use in advertising.
It's also available for law enforcement to subpoena.
I'd be more comfortable if it was all stored locally, and the Glass devices were running 100% free and open source software that could be examined to confirm that Google never gets a copy of any of the video or images.
Because the law says they have to. In some settings, privacy and wiretapping laws will apply to using Glass. In some other settings, they won't. Different US states have different laws governing the use of audio and video recording hardware in private versus public settings.
Glass is going to force new discussion about one-party versus two-party consent to recordings. It's a conversation that needs to happen.
Some US states have audio recording laws that can still apply even "walking down the street". Look at some of the cases of individuals attempting to record police who were charged under wiretapping laws.
I'm not really arguing about the details of how current laws are, I'm arguing about the morality of technology and how the laws should be.
If I'm talking to you over the phone, I'm allowed (both morally and legally) to remember your conversation. I'm allowed (both morally and legally) to write it down, to remember it better. And I'm allowed (both morally and legally) to remember it perfectly forever, if I'm able to.
Should we legally forbid to actually fulfill that if I need some assistance to remember it exactly as happened? My fuzzy memories and notes are allowed, why should better, exact memories/notes be forbidden?
I'm allowed and may be even required to remember past events in courts - should we forbid remembering things as they actually happened and require them to be stuck in the noisy, lossy and distorting channel that is homo sapiens memories?
But a recording allows you to share what I have shown you (perhaps assuming it would remain a private matter) with the world. A video recording has a higher truth value than oral reproduction.
It does have a reputation of being a bit more trustworthy as it's (temporarily) harder to fake - but it is orthogonal to privacy. I would be able to disclose your secrets from memory, despite your assumptions.
In this sense Glass simply replicates a rather unusually good memory - and it may be obtained in natural ways; for example, some people really have absolutely 'photographic' memory due to a genetic or birth 'defect'.
And it is possible (likely?) that I might in future obtain such unusually good memory as well - through brain-improving drugs, genetic engineering or implants that augment my brain . Or, in a rather limited way, through Google Glass.
What I'm aiming at is that by banning such recordings in essence you would be banning people having a better / more accurate memory. And I see that as a Bad Thing - globally speaking, I'd like to see that people have a chance to improve beyond current body limitations. All of them.
Making a law that states "your memory must be fallible, imperfect and degrade with time, since that's how it's Always Been Done Here" seems, well, evil.
Actually, it doesn't require any permission whatsoever so long as you are in a public area. If the owner of private property says you can't film there, then you can't, but simply being the subject of public filming doesn't give you the right to object.
> Comments about legality or western perspectives on privacy are off base.
If you want to participate in Western society, you need to be able to interact with people who will observe you in public. My parent poster does not accept the basic implications of being observed in public. It's not at all off base to point out that his fundamental understanding of privacy is in conflict with the world around him.
There is absolutely no such requirement. Where would such a requirement come from, and how would it be enforced? It is an absurd fabrication. The ability and right to ignore people in public has a long and proud history in western society.
Again, the parent poster rejects the basic implications of being in public: people observing him and knowing what he did in public. He is offended by people seeing him, hearing what he says.
Disagreeing with being observed is incompatible with Western life, since you can't get very far without leaving your private property. I do imagine in 50 years or so, you'd be right: you'll be able to live an entire life in (say) America without ever leaving your house. I'm not sure I'd want to, but the parent poster clearly requires it, if he can't handle being perceived.
He has every right to hold whatever opinion on privacy he wants, and he can act on those opinions in any legal fashion he wishes.
If he intends to drag people to court and thinks that will work, then he is delusional. If he is just choosing to abstain from unnecessary contact with people who are wearing cameras? Not my cup of tea, but so what? He can do that all he wishes.
I have some rather similar rules that are less extreme but applied much more often in practice. For example, I refuse to interact with people on public transit or on the street when I am wearing headphones. You could say I am "offended" when people try to talk to me when I am actively ignoring them. Big whoop. You find his expectations of social conduct unreasonable. Big whoop.
You can say that I "can't" have that attitude towards social interaction in public, or that he cannot, but the simple fact of the matter is that we can. We have the ability and the right to choose how we wish to interact with others.
You don't understand (the Western notion of) privacy one lick. I recommend avoiding all public places until you figure it out and get comfortable with it.
