Facebook wants to add facial recognition to its long-awaited smart glasses that are expected to hit the market next year.
At a staff meeting, Facebook Reality Labs director Andrew Bosworth said the company was examining the legal and privacy ramifications of the technology, BuzzFeed reports.
He warned that the benefits and risks were obvious, “and we don’t know where to balance these things.”
Facial recognition would help a user recognize someone whose name has been forgotten, theorized by Bosworth, or if they have facial blindness.
Scroll down to see the video
Facebook Reality Labs director Andrew Bosworth said the company was examining the legal and privacy ramifications of adding facial recognition technology to its upcoming smart glasses.
During the company meeting, an unnamed employee asked Bosworth about the privacy concerns generated by facial recognition, including bullies.
‘[That] it could be the thorniest issue, “Bosworth replied.” Where the benefits are so clear and the risks so clear and we don’t know where to balance these things. “
Privacy has been a painful issue for Facebook, which is spending $ 650 million to settle a lawsuit alleging it violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act by using member data to tag people in the photos.
“Facial recognition is a very controversial topic and for good reason,” Bosworth tweeted. “… He was talking about how we should have a very public debate about the pros and cons.”
Facebook’s Ray-Bans brand smart glasses are expected later this year. Bosworth said the company should have “a very public debate about the pros and cons” of adding facial recognition tools to the device
While Facebook’s smart glasses would be “okay” without the ability to identify faces, he added, there are some “nice use cases,” like forgetting someone’s name at a dinner party.
He also referred to people with prosopagnosis or facial blindness, a neurological condition that makes it difficult to recognize familiar faces.
Maxine Williams, Facebook’s director of diversity, added that the company may need to develop its own privacy guidelines in areas where the technology is not regulated by law, BuzzFeed reported.
Mark Zuckerberg revealed in September that Facebook partnered with Luxottica Group on a pair of smart Ray-Bans.
Beyond that, however, the social media giant has been intentionally inaccurate about its plans, even when laptops will be available.
In a January blog post, Bosworth mocked the devices “coming sooner rather than later.”
He told Bloomberg that smart glasses could improve a person’s life in a way that a smartphone can’t, like capturing a moment with your kids.
Mark Zuckerberg revealed in September that Facebook partnered with Luxottica Group on a pair of smart Ray-Bans. Beyond that, however, the company has been intentionally vague about what it will offer
By the time you open your phone, not only will you have lost it, but if you don’t lose it, you’re probably watching the actual event through your phone, ”he said.“ If you have the right technology, you can get out of the way “.
This suggests that the glasses will include a camera or other way to capture and save moments.
They may not include augmented reality (RA) technology, which coats digital objects in real-world word environments.
“They’re definitely connected glasses, they offer a lot of functionality, [but] we are being very upset about what functionality we provide precisely, ”Bosworth said.
“We’re excited, but we don’t want to do too much. We don’t even call it augmented reality, we call it ‘smart glasses.’
Another Facebook Reality Labs product, the Oculus Quest 2, has just added a new feature: users can interact with the headphones by saying the phrase “Hey Facebook”.
“This will be a gradual release,” the company said in a blog post, “but you can find and activate the word surveillance through our experimental feature setup, and then say‘ Hey Facebook, take a look “,” Hey Facebook, show me I’m online, “Hey Facebook, open Supernatural” or any of our other voice commands to get started. ”
The activation word feature is turned on and will not work when the microphone is turned off or when the headset is asleep or turned off.
It started rolling out on the Quest 2 headphones on Thursday and will be added to the original Quest over time.