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Norway Eyes Partial Ban of Smart Glasses

52 points pseudolus 2 hours ago 18 comments

thadt 1 hour ago | parent

> The ban could apply to parks, beaches, museums, shopping centres, schools, daycare centres, healthcare facilities, gyms and public events.

True - many places where photography and video recording by people and organizations is already done on a broad scale with both smartphones and infrastructure cameras.

> "We do not want a society where people worry about being recorded without their knowledge, photographed, or filmed in places and situations where they are accustomed to not being monitored"

... I think we're gonna need a bigger ban

iamnothere 45 minutes ago | parent

This seems similar to how much of East Asia requires a “click” sound from camera apps, to prevent surreptitious photos, or how some US states require both parties to consent when recording audio of a conversation. There’s plenty of precedent for privacy laws related to public recording, across the world. And they don’t have to be perfect—the goal is to limit access to casual snooping and creepshots, and to ensure that those who habitually violate privacy can be prosecuted if caught.

Just because you’re in public doesn’t mean it’s ok to take secret upskirt photos, film in the gym showers, etc. There actually is a certain level of privacy expected in public.

Edit: corrected SE Asia to East Asia.

Ajedi32 34 minutes ago | parent

Banning harmful behavior (like secretly recording someone) is pretty defensible and not all that controversial. Banning the mere possession of generic tools that could potentially be used to engage in harmful behavior is a lot more dubious. It requires infringing the rights of a bunch of innocent people merely because they might use that freedom to do something wrong.

intrasight 29 minutes ago | parent

The obvious solution is to have them behave like drones - where their behavior is geofenced.

Ajedi32 18 minutes ago | parent

Only issue with that is that enforcing it requires you to make open source smart glasses illegal, since open source software cannot be used to coerce users the way closed-source software can.

iamnothere 16 minutes ago | parent

I agree in part. Rather than a full ban, it makes more sense to require manufacturers to implement obnoxiously obvious “tells” (blinding LED plus sound perhaps), and to ban commercial businesses that remove these features. No need to ban possession. For DIY creepers a ban on the behavior is enough, they will get caught eventually.

The point is to ban widespread normalization of tools that make invasion of privacy easy. You can go find a shirt button spy cam on Aliexpress, but if you get caught wearing it then everyone knows what you’re up to. Wearing one in certain places could be taken as criminal intent.

(I don’t think restrictions like this would work in the US without an amendment, but I think we’re long overdue for a privacy amendment to clarify some things.)

sleepyguy 27 minutes ago | parent

Yeah, lets also ban smart phones, cameras and recording devices just in case.

iamnothere 14 minutes ago | parent

Somebody check this guy’s camera roll

sleepyguy 3 minutes ago | parent

Apple already did....hehehe...

esperent 20 minutes ago | parent

> This seems similar to how much of SE Asia requires a “click” sound from camera apps

I live in "SE Asia" - specifically Vietnam - and I've never heard of such a law. I just looked it up and the two countries that come up are Korea and Japan, neither of which are in SE Asia.

iamnothere 9 minutes ago | parent

I guess you’re right, I always refer to them as SE Asia but it’s technically considered East Asia. Thanks for the correction.

InvertedRhodium 2 minutes ago | parent

I 100% agree with this outlook. People that have ignored encroaching surveillance for decades at this point are finally concerned once we start suggesting we literally strap them to the face of a sizeable chunk of the population.

Personally, I gave up years ago. People don't care about actual privacy, they just care about the illusion of it.

indoordin0saur 44 minutes ago | parent

> Norway Eyes Partial Ban of Smart Glasses

I see what you did there.

laxd 25 minutes ago | parent

A temporary measure. Knowing the current regime they will use years & millions on comittees, reports, reviews, expert groups and all kinds of bureaucratic wage labor I don't have english vocabulary for. And then, the EU, which we a not a member of, decides everything behind our back.

vkdelta 4 minutes ago | parent

How is different from another device ? Phone, digital camera, etc .. someone can use that for taking the same photo ..

Is it the added convenience of the glasses?

ubercore 4 minutes ago | parent

There's a big difference between holding up a phone and taking a picture and just... existing with glasses and having everything recorded without your knowledge.

iamnothere 2 minutes ago | parent

It’s easy to see if someone has a phone or camera pointed at you. If someone’s looking in your direction while wearing glasses, you would not typically expect them to be recording you.

tombert 1 minute ago | parent

I think it's because it's more plainly obvious if someone is taking photo if they're lifting up a phone to do it. Someone taking a photo with glasses can be done more covertly.