Meta’s RayBan Smart Glasses Can Be Used to Dox Strangers: Two Harvard Students Reveal

• Harvard students, AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio did research on Meta's Ray-Ban glasses in which they were able to dox strangers in just a glance.
• They did so by hooking up the glasses with a facial recognition platform and then using an LLM to combine the data.
• This is a huge privacy risk. Meta and Ray-Ban have addressed this discovery.

Meta's Ray-Ban glasses might not be very safe. Research conducted by two Harvard students shows that it can be used to identify strangers on the street and get their information.

The purpose of the project was to raise awareness about the dangers of these glasses. They chose Meta RayBans 2 specifically because it looks like a regular pair of glasses.

In a Google document, the two students AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio explained their research which they are calling I-XRAY. They did not reveal the code to prevent bad actors from using it but they did share an outline of their work.

• Basically, they hooked up a pair of Meta RayBans 2 to an invasive facial recognition software called PimEyes.
• It's a reverse image search tool that uses a picture to find information about a person from various online databases.
• They then went to a subway station and used the glasses on unsuspecting people"
• Then the duo used a large language model (LLM) to combine all the data.
• The result was that they could identify and pull out information about someone with just a glance. More than a dozen people were successfully recognized this way.

While on the surface, it might sound like exciting technology, it can actually be very dangerous. Imagine walking down the street and someone finds your address and phone number just by glancing at you. You could become their next victim.

And this is all happening because of the progress in LLM.

This synergy between LLMs and reverse face search allows for fully automatic and comprehensive data extraction that was previously not possible with traditional methods alone - Research Doc

Is It Possible to Protect Yourself from the Dangers of This Tech?

There's not much you can do unless the tech leaders decide to take action. Nguen and Ardayfio have not released their code but that doesn't mean some other tech genius can't figure it out.

They did say that people who were not on PimEyes, for instance, 404 Media reporter Joseph Cox, could not be recognized. So opting out of invasive search engines might help.

However, in today's time, it's hard to identify which tool is invasive and which isn't. Even your most trusted platform could be secretly collecting your data.

So the only ones truly in control here are the tech companies. Facebook and Google are not yet working with such technology. But unfortunately, some other AI companies are exploring similar options.

For example, Clearview AI, which is a search engine for cops, is planning to invest in a similar pair of smart glasses. This is worrying because Clearview has stated that putting everyone on its database is its biggest goal. Plus, cops already use a lot of unethical ways to conduct searches without warrants. They don't need another tool.

What Does Meta and RayBan Have to Say about This?

Both the companies have tried to downplay the risk. Meta pointed out that the same thing can be done by using an individual's photo as well. And RayBan pointed out that PimEyes does not directly identify people. It points the user to the photo's link where they can find identifiable information.

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