Students shatter anonymity by tinkering with Meta’s smart glasses

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Students have developed software allowing them to almost certainly identify the identity of a stranger captured through Meta and Ray-Ban glasses.

Connected glasses, a nightmare of anonymity. This is the lesson that can be learned from the experiment carried out by AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, two students at Harvard University, who developed software capable of identifying an individual simply by looking at them through ‘a pair of glasses Meta Ray-Ban. These glasses are equipped with a photo sensor that streams video on Instagram, this is one of the basic functions of the product.

Identify passers-by in the blink of an eye

The students’ software monitors the feed sent by the glasses, with the AI tasked with detecting a face in that feed. Facial recognition is provided by the specialized search engine PimEyes. From this image, an internet search is carried out, which makes it possible to find a lot of information about the person in question: online articles, databases, etc. Everything is automatic.

All public information about the individual is returned to the wearer of the glasses, such as name, phone number, mailing address and even names of loved ones. Dozens of students were thus “recognized” by the glasses, without their knowledge. The video shared by AnhPhu Nguyen below is particularly eloquent: he thus obtains, almost immediately, a lot of information about a person in the metro.

Are we ready for a world where our data is exposed at a glance? @CaineArdayfio and I offer an answer to protect yourself here:https://t.co/LhxModhDpk pic.twitter.com/Oo35TxBNtD

— AnhPhu Nguyen (@AnhPhuNguyen1) September 30, 2024

The two creators of the software wanted to demonstrate the possibility of identifying faces and obtaining a lot of information from anyone. The project mainly aims to raise awareness about what it is possible to do with technologies accessible today, whether it is a product like Meta glasses, or publicly available information.

Rest assured, the two creators have absolutely no intention of putting their software online. And if they chose Meta’s connected glasses, it’s because they look like normal glasses. But in reality, any device equipped with a video sensor would be sufficient.

Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses light up a white light when the camera is active, a signal that is not necessarily recognized by ordinary people. For its part, PimEyes says it is “surprised” because the search engine was not designed to identify individuals.