"HateAid said its complaint was based on a federal digital data protection law that prohibits the sale of communication devices designed to film people without them noticing."
I think the light makes it pretty clear it's recording? There will always be devices made to suppress this... I'm not sure I want to go down the path of mandating an audible camera click sound like they have for smartphones in Japan
There's news articles already about women realising they were recorded without their consent and are now on TikTok or something. Just waiting for the first lawsuit against Meta about that, hopefully it kills the idea.
I like smart glasses as they are useful for quickly capturing life's moments (friends/family/experiences) and learning more about the world around you. When i did some solo traveling in Berlin i learned a lot about things I was seeing thru my glasses.
I think Apple if and when releases their smart glasses they could/should add a privacy feature. The feature would anonymize and or randomize all strangers faces in the pics and vids you take who are not in your network (Apple already knows many faces in your network now).
Though Apple may never release such glasses but Google via Samsung will purportedly be releasing theirs this fall.
> Though Apple may never release such glasses but Google via Samsung will purportedly be releasing theirs this fall.
The old "let's break the law as much and as blatantly as possible, our lawyers will delay any punishment until so many people has the product that is not politically viable to stop it".
Let's start to put into prison CEOs that have broken the law, I do not care if millions use Facebook. It facilitated a genocide that is a crime against humanity. Let's tech them a lesson so they stop ignoring the law. And it should be an exemplary prison sentence, not just a couple of years that they spend at home.
The guy who was honestly providing his experience using smart glasses with his family and how they could be improved to be more privacy-conscious.
You then went on a rant about how CEOs should be jailed because their products facilitated a genocide? How does this have to do with the parent? It's not even clear that these smart glasses are illegal (I suppose we'll see the results of the criminal complaint)?
What would be best for a video equivalent of that? I can imagine an old school "film rolling" sound playing for as long as it's recording, or some tape hiss or something.
When you film with a camera you are holding a camera and you're pointing it at people. When you film with your glasses, nothing of such happens. And the ridiculous defense "it has a light" is just that, ridiculous: you can't see a light if you're not looking directly at it and have convenient surrounding lighting.
I'd say it's easier to covertly film someone with a smartphone than with glasses that have a lightup LED. With the smartphone you can just angle it to look as if you're casually holding it or using it normally.
That would violate a different law, though, § 201 StGB (German penalty code) forbids recording if there is a reasonable assumption of privacy (which you can have even in public).
This complaint is about a different law (§ 8 TDDDG), that explicitly forbids selling and owning devices that are designed as every-day objects and that can record sound and/or video and that.
Are we arguing about what the creepiest way is to film people on the streets? Who would want that in the first place?? I don't need encouraging creeps... I didn't hear yet "filming the ICE" as a argument - probably the only one I could understand, but there the problem is not the glasses anyway (nor the solution).
It's specifically about bug-like devices which transmit the recording. A typical consumer camera does not provide simultaneous uploading, I think. A device that is just recording for storage is not regulated this way.
The law has been applied to baby monitors disguised as toys, which makes some sense to me. Smart watches and phones where the microphone can be controlled remotely, with that capability being marketed specifically for monitoring purposes, have also been targeted.
This sentence doesn’t make sense so I may be reading it wrong. But in sunlight the red LED is totally invisible. It’s too bad because they’re genuinely a good idea for me but I feel like a creep for even considering a pair.
a video equivalent of the mandatory shutter sound, I mean. You might overlook an LED and it can be covered, but a constant loud noise is unmistakeable hopefully.
That would be very annoying and mess with recording sound. And yes, a LED could be covered, but then this would be a crime in areas where covert recording is not allowed (e.g. public spaces).
The problem is that even when they're not recording they're still beaming data back to Meta. Which is why I'll continue being a PITA to anyone wearing them where I'm in their field of view. I made a choice long ago that I wanted nothing to do with their dumbfuck products, but now they've decided I get no choice and that's not fucking on.
Look at what how GDPR is interpreted in regards to CCTVs and bodycams. You generally do need to give proper Article 13 notice in regards to those recordings. In particular EDPB Guidelines on video recording (3/2019) state that:
> The first layer concerns the primary way in which the controller first engages with the data subject. At this stage, controllers may use a warning sign showing the relevant information. The displayed information may be provided in combination with an icon in order to give, in an easily visible, intelligible and clearly readable manner, a meaningful overview of the intended processing (Article 12 (7) GDPR). The format of the information should be adjusted to the individual location (WP89 par. 22).
> The information should be positioned in such a way that the data subject can easily recognize the circumstances of the surveillance before entering the monitored area (approximately at eye level). It is not necessary to reveal the position of the camera as long as there is no doubt as to which areas are subject to monitoring and the context of surveillance is clarified unambiguously
> The first layer information (warning sign) should generally convey the most important information, e.g. the details of the purposes of processing, the identity of controller and the existence of the rights of the data subject, together with information on the greatest impacts of the processing
While recording by these might not always implicate GDPR directly (as it might be exempted under household exemption or the broader allowances given for journalistic purposes), it does give good idea on how unambiguous it should be.
> While recording by these might not always implicate GDPR directly (as it might be exempted under household exemption or the broader allowances given for journalistic purposes)
I'd guess that the glasses first transfer the recordings to Meta who process and store them abroad for various commercial purposes. That way of working can never fall under the household or journalistic exemptions. And per GDPR the owner of the glasses is on the hook for whatever Meta is doing, because the owner is (by GDPR) contracting Meta to do data processing for him/her.
I don't think the owner is on the hook if they simply use the service. The individual wasn't the one who truly decided the essential means and purposes beyond personal use, Meta is the one who did that and is thus the controller for that processing.
And I believe in case of European users the contract is between Meta Ireland and user, Meta Ireland is the one who would be the one doing the exporting in that case.
Now if user actually did publish it on Meta's service for broader consumption then they might become controller for that & if initial purpose was that then the initial recording is unlikely to be exempted under household exemption.
> The individual wasn't the one who truly decided the essential means and purposes beyond personal use
The user is supposed to have read Meta's terms and conditions and agreed to them. Of course nobody does that, but that doesn't absolve of the responsibility, it rather means that the user who uploads stuff to Meta does things in full knowledge and willingly or carelessly. It just might make Meta liable as well, because naturally their terms were sneaky, hidden, unclear and probably illegal.
And I'd guess that Meta Ireland has been sued often enough that they have some export clause deep in their conditions as well, which the user should also have read and agreed to.
The full analysis of this would need to take in account:
* Who actually determines the essential means and purposes for each processing purpose (and is truly doing it). Fashion ID case is quite relevant here.
* If terms which grant Meta these rights and user a lot of obligations would fall under unfair terms or unfair commercial practices directives. If they do then those aspects of the terms are invalid. These could, for example, affect requirement that the user must get consent from data subject for Meta's processing operations.
There have been various cases where individuals have been determined to be separate controllers. For example there have been many cases where doctors/nurses/police looked into the employer's databases without having professional need and were determined to be separate controllers and were fined under GDPR.
It seems to come up every time this complaint arises. "I want to use an open source project without being associated with furries" isn't that unreasonable of a request.
There is a difference between some maintainer somewhere being involved in a subculture and graphics from it being the first thing you see when you visit an unrelated website.
My problem is more that I don't want open source infrastructure I don't control to be infected by this. For my own website I can just make it efficient enough not to need hacks like this.
Nah, I don't especially like the logo myself when I come across those sites, but I do like that "brand" people who want to make money off it and not pay dislike it even more.
unfortunately the field of abiogenesis, just like extraterrestrial life, is a lost cause.
The reality we will never be able to replicate creation of life nor find life on other planets (except via contamination). it's why we've never gotten any closer. and i'm not even religious
We seem to make gradual progress in investigating like this article and recently there was stuff on how RNA could self replicate https://youtu.be/EhPgu0I8yaY
Likely we don't need to replicate. We just need to get a sample of life with completely independent origin to our kind of life here on Earth, to study. This way we would be able to separate what are universal properties for any life from historical contingencies specific to us. To have samples of a single kind of life complicates things.
Were that to happen it could be the worst news humanity ever receives, since it would greatly increase the chance the "Great Filter" is in front of us, not behind us.
The Milky Way is almost 14 billion years old. The Milky Way is perhaps 100K light-years in diameter. If you can travel at 0.1c you could colonize the Milky Way in perhaps around a million years, less than 0.01% of the age of the Milky Way.
So, either there's a filter that's blocked interstellar colonization... or it has occurred already, and we just aren't aware of it (some sort of dark forest thing / we are being secretly watched by an extraterrestrial civilization).
These sort of calculations are nothing but examples of how a bad model gives bad results. In this case, the model is bad because it's underspecified.
Saying "I have a bad model but there's some unknown Great Factor which would make it a good model" isn't very convincing.
There are myriad factors: the biological challenges of space travel constitute a long list in itself; the economics and politics involved (ROI on any useful timeframe for interstellar travel is zero); the engineering challenges (the vast majority of interstellar travel attempts will result in the death of all crew somewhere in interstellar space); the fact that over million-year timescales, species evolve and change - humans are only around 30% of a million years old.
There is no need for an organized, unified project for life to spread across the galaxy, any more than there's a need for a unified effort for bacteria and fungi to consume some tasty organic matter, or for humans to have spread across Earth in prehistory.
Not if it's just microbial life. Anyway it's just one case or another. We knowing what's the case doesn't change it. If the news never break it would be just as bad, perhaps even slightly worse, as we would not have early warning to prepare.
here's my take: it's convenient for politicians to fingerpoint and threaten IOUs in a state where wildfires are practically unavoidable (CC, veg, massive size). it works the base well, but they don't actually want the massive liability of wf risk running the state's Tx grid themselves. Especially not in a state with inverse condemnation. Esp not a gov that already bears too much risk via FAIR.
Gov will rarely actually push to even just reduce the ROR... even though they have that lever. I'm curious why you think this is. Not a gotcha or anything, I think there's lots of answers
Now, whether transitioning POUs to IOUs would serve ratepayers better (lower costs and reduced wildfires), I'm not sure there's a clear answer. If it were possible, I would vote on such a thing because I share your optimism. But I'm not sure I share your confidence. Options of equity financing etc can be helpful...
I want to make it clear im not an IOU apologist. I just think the whole system is broken, not just 1 (or i guess 3) actors.
Yeah, the problem with bringing all this stuff under direct government control is that it's REALLY expensive to keep it maintained for residents in wildfire prone areas.
SF is planning on buying out PG&E's assets, which will almost certainly reduce rates for SF customers and increase them for the rest of PG&E's base.
I think that CA could transition to the Texas model and take control of transmission while leaving generation to the market. If the state could properly assess transmission fees, it could guide future development away from wildfire areas and incentivize local generation where possible.
It would also drive down electricity prices and finally fix the embarrassing issue with "drill baby drill" TX doing better with renewables than CA.
The commenter is stating that as a fact, which is spreading information that's not true to others reading that.
Perfect is the enemy of good as always. Having a system that is currently available on the two biggest mobile platforms for the launch (Covering probably 99.9% of consumers) is already much better than piping every single transaction through two US mega corps.
> Good morning, it's not "our" fault. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about it—Wero is a service offered by EPI, and they've decided to take a "mobile-first" approach for now. Warm regards from Bochum!
> What about smartphones that run on free and open-source software instead of the commercial operating systems used by the iPhone or Google?
> Tanja Müller-Ziegler: This market is still very much a niche one. There are still too few providers, which is why it’s hardly worth offering banking apps for these devices.
> Perfect is the enemy of good as always.
I'm no expert on iDEAL, but being 20 years old, it's older than Android and iOS and presumably supported web based payments from the very beginning. I really don't understand why nowadays people seem to think that app exclusivity is somehow a natural starting point. It's a relatively recent invention.
> they've decided to take a "mobile-first" approach for now
That's hardly a confirmation that it will never be possible ("for now"). It seems like a fair tradeoff for a launch when almost everyone has a smartphone and that's already enforced like that for many parts of life (I'm not saying it's great, but it's a valid tradeoff when alternative options exist) like banking or public transport where the happy path often is a phone app.
You'd think that basic infrastructure such as payment systems had higher standards than just "most" people having access to it.
It's fine as long as we have alternatives, but if online shops were to start to phase out SEPA payments in favor of Wero and Wero-only shops were to start popping it, it would be a real problem.
Btw the solution already exists: It's still relatively small scale but GNU Taler is live in Switzerland. The EU could make regulation to make it easier to adopt at any time it wants.
It's a system which is currently barely live in 5 countries out of 27 EU countries. In most of them < 2 banks are supporting it. It's basically a beta rollout and there's no danger of SEPA, MasterCard or VISA going away and leaving people stranded that don't have a smartphone so there's no need to panic.
Give it some time to mature before writing it off.
when it first started it was basically 450GBP/MWh (In 2010 GBP). and that was paid for every kWh generated (whether exported or not). And the PPA lasts for 20-25 years.
I think the light makes it pretty clear it's recording? There will always be devices made to suppress this... I'm not sure I want to go down the path of mandating an audible camera click sound like they have for smartphones in Japan