By Mimi Perka

 

Last week, Facebook introduced Ray-Ban Stories – which are Facebook’s first generation of smart glasses.[1] These glasses are equipped with dual integrated 5MP cameras, LED lights, open-ear speakers, and a three-microphone audio array that allow users to capture photos and 30-second videos.[2] The glasses are also capable of making calls, taking voice commands, and they connect straight to the new Facebook View app.[3]

The glasses start at $299 and come in 20 different style combinations, including the classic Ray-Ban styles: Wayfarer, Wayfarer Large, Round and Meteor.[4] Additionally, the glasses are customizable with prescription or transition lenses if users pay additional costs.[5]

While these glasses certainly have many features and are much better looking than other first-generation smart glasses,[6] should users be concerned for their own privacy? Further, should the public at large be concerned about how much user’s might capture in this new discreet and fashion-forward method?

While Facebook boasts that Ray-Ban stories are “designed with privacy in mind,”[7] the privacy features seem to center mostly around what is shared from the glasses to user’s public Facebook pages, a power switch to turn the glasses off, and an LED light that turns on when a user is taking photos or recording to alert the public.[8]

Additionally, Facebook’s “dedicated privacy microsuite” is noticeably bare, and has no mention of the legalities that users should be aware of while wearing the glasses.[9]

As these glasses aren’t designed as solely sunglasses like other smart glasses have traditionally been, this could become legally troublesome for user’s who wear the glasses during the regular work day and will have the capabilities to potentially expose and share private and confidential information.[10] While most workplaces require employees to agree to confidentiality agreements which if breached could result in termination and a potential breach of contract claim,[11] certain types of workplace disclosures could also have federally enforced legal implications for users.[12]

On the other hand, while courts have consistently held that it is a First Amendment right to take photos of others in public spaces,[13] many people are uncomfortable with having their photographs taken without consent[14] which could only be exacerbated by this new discrete and non-traditional method of photography. Additionally, although the Constitution does not expressly declare a right to privacy, many elements of privacy are present in the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and it has been recognized as an implied right of the Ninth Amendment.[15] Many states have also enumerated expressed rights to privacy in their Constitutions.[16] Some states have even taken this expressed right one step further, to specifically protect unlawful photography.[17]

For example, a Tennessee law states:

a) It is an offense for a person to knowingly photograph, or cause to be photographed, an individual without the prior effective consent of the individual, or in the case of a minor, without the prior effective consent of the minor’s parent or guardian, if the photograph:

(1) (A) Would offend or embarrass an ordinary person if the person appeared in the photograph; or

(B) Is focused on the intimate area of the individual and would be considered offensive or embarrassing by the individual; and

(2) Was taken for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification of the defendant.[18]

The Supreme Court relies on a privacy standard articulated in 1967 in the case of Katz v. United States,[19] where the Court reasoned that every person is entitled to a “reasonable expectation of privacy.”[20] However, in today’s technologically advanced society, it can be difficult to know what is “reasonable” or what would “offend or embarrass an ordinary person” due to the ubiquitousness of smart devices and social media and photo sharing.[21] Thus, the privacy standard is getting more and more difficult for courts to police as people are sharing more information through the use of modern technology.[22]

While this all could be troublesome for users and the people in their surroundings, the New York Times notes about the Ray-Ban Stories Glasses:

“Many of these privacy concerns are beside the point for technologists who see wearables as inexorable for society. For Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, the ultimate goal is to eventually release a pair of smart glasses that fully augment reality, which puts a kind of virtual overlay onto the world in front of people. That idea is yet another step on the road to the metaverse, Mr. Zuckerberg’s term for how parts of the virtual and actual world will eventually meld together and share different parts of each other.”[23]

In sum, maybe 10 years from now we’ll all be videotaping each other through our glasses, driving self-operating cars, and messaging each other through holographic cell phones, and where would the reasonable privacy standard lead us then? Maybe smart glasses are just the beginning.

 

[1] Introducing Ray-Ban Stories: First-Generation Smart Glasses, About.Facebook.com (Sept. 9, 2021), https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/introducing-ray-ban-stories-smart-glasses/.

 

[2] Id.

 

[3] Id.

 

[4] Id.

 

[5] Id.

 

[6] See, e.g., Spectacles – Sunglasses for Snapchat, Amazon.com, https://www.amazon.com/2016-Spectacles-Sunglasses-for-Snapchat/dp/B01N9ECA5B.

 

[7] Ray-Ban and Facebook introduce Ray-Ban Stories, first-generation smart glasses, Tech@Facebook (Sept. 9, 2021), https://tech.fb.com/ray-ban-and-facebook-introduce-ray-ban-stories-first-generation-smart-glasses/.

 

[8] Id.

 

[9] Designed for privacy, controlled by you, https://about.facebook.com/reality-labs/ray-ban-stories/privacy?_ga=2.214402775.1164369414.1631282119-1594130824.1631282119 (last visited Sept. 10, 2021).

 

[10] Hoyle et al., Privacy Norms and Preferences for Photos Posted Online, 27 ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (Issue 4), 30:1, 30:2 (2020), https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3380960.

 

[11] See, e.g., Saini v. Int’l Game Tech., 434 F. Supp. 2d 913, 917 (D. Nev. 2006).

 

[12] See, e.g., 15 U.S.C.A. § 57b-2 (West).

 

[13] See, e.g., Fogel v. Forbes, Inc., 500 F. Supp. 1081, 1087 (E.D. Pa. 80); Pemberton v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 502 A.2d, 1101, 1116-17 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1986); Forster v. Manchester, 189 A.2d 147, 150 (Pa. 1963).

 

[14] Hoyle et al., supra note 10, at 30:3.

 

[15] Jeremy Fogel, A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy, 40 LITIG. 6, 7 (2014).

 

[16] Id.

 

[17] See, e.g., Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-605 (2021).

 

[18] Id.

 

[19] Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S. Ct. 507, 516 (1967).

 

[20] Fogel, supra note 15, at 8.

 

[21] Joshua A.T. Fairfield & Christoph Engel, Privacy as a Public Good, 65 DUKE L.J. 385, 402 (2015).

 

[22] Fogel, supra note 15, at 8.

 

[23] Mike Isaac, Smart Glasses Made Google Look Dumb. Now Facebook Is Giving Them a Try., N.Y. Times (Sept. 9, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/technology/facebook-wayfarer-stories-smart-glasses.html.

 

Image source: https://tech.fb.com/ray-ban-and-facebook-introduce-ray-ban-stories-first-generation-smart-glasses