Indeed, as is the old trick of surreptitiously taking upskirt photos with a cameraphone. There are an infinite number of ways by which a bad actor can use Glass for nefarious ends - as is the case with almost any technology.
And that's the point I'm making - not that Glass is an infallible technology with no social downsides, but rather that its success isn't hinged on it. If it offers something valuable to its users and their friends, society as a whole will work around it - either by evolving the technology or evolving our notion of propriety. More likely, a bit of both.
We worked around security cameras (part of which involved new legislation regarding privacy effects thereof), we worked around Google Street View, and we'll work around this.
I for one do not think camera phones are chill, and many enterprises do not allow them in the workplace. I do not allow for people to take my picture or record me without my permission.
As a professional photographer, I have my subjects sign a release before or shortly after I take a picture they’re in. If they refuse to sign, I delete the material.
Interesting. I've never heard of a workplace where you can't bring your iPhone on the premises, but I guess there must be some. You must admit it's rare in the white collar sector.
> I do not allow for people to take my picture or record me without my permission.
I don't see how you have much control over it, at least in public. Maybe you live in a country where preventing others from recording you is a legal privilege.
> "In most countries, you can’t just take pictures of random people without their permission."
Citation needed, as a fellow photographer. Photographing people in public places, without consent, is entirely legal in almost all developed countries.
Some countries have stricter rules regarding publishing or publicizing these images, but restrictions on photographing people in public spaces without their consent is quit rare in the developed world.
Japan[1] has some of the strictest laws re: photographing random people, and even that is very much liability-based after the fact rather than a ban.
From the site you linked: "'You can't take my photo without permission'. Oh yes you can, usually." It's fairly clear cut that there's little you can do about it.
And I know for sure that banks don't forbid camera phones at least in general, because my father worked at one and all his people had blackberries. This was years ago, and camera phones have only become more ubiquitous.
“I know for sure that banks don't forbid camera phones at least in general”
I gave examples of settings where camera phones might be forbidden. At most regular branches of banks, they’re probably fine. I worked at the headquarters of a bank that also served as distribution center of most of my nation’s cash bills.
OK, so, it's rare. And you've as much as admitted that there's almost nothing you can do about it in public, so I've accomplished what I wanted to in this discussion.
But camera phones must be conspicuously placed to record, and even then, the perspective is usually skewed or there are sound and video artifacts from outside sources (the movement of the device, sounds of cloth rubbing against the mic, white noise).
With Glass, the ease of surveillance increases tenfold. Not only do you have an absolute perspective of how the end result is going to look because the device is on your face, but you have an open line of sight and artifacts will be reduced to a minimum due to its placement.
I'm not denying it would be easier with Glass, but have you never seen anyone take out their phone to text? How did were you sure they weren't making a video? It's not hard to record without being detected on an iPhone if you wish.
My main feeling is that the folks have latched onto a narrative about it that is not necessarily going to be that important in the real world, as we see happen so often with other things on this site.
The old trick of covering (or disabling) the recording light indicator of a camera to conceal the act of recording could easily be applied to Glass.