Google Glass: Orwellian surveillance with fluffier branding

[Ghost Dog]

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... Imagine if Google or Facebook decided to install their own CCTV cameras everywhere, gathering data about our movements, recording our lives and joining up every camera in the land in one giant control room. It’s Orwellian surveillance with fluffier branding. And this isn’t just video surveillance – Glass uses audio recording too. For added impact, if you’re not content with Google analysing the data, the person can share it to social media as they see fit too.

Yet that is the reality of Google Glass. Everything you see, Google sees. You don’t own the data, you don’t control the data and you definitely don’t know what happens to the data. Put another way – what would you say if instead of it being Google Glass, it was Government Glass? A revolutionary way of improving public services, some may say. Call me a cynic, but I don’t think it’d have much success.

More importantly, who gave you permission to collect data on the person sitting opposite you on the Tube? How about collecting information on your children’s friends? There is a gaping hole in the middle of the Google Glass world and it is one where privacy is not only seen as an annoying restriction on Google’s profit, but as something that simply does not even come into the equation. Google has empowered you to ignore the privacy of other people. Bravo.

It’s already led to reactions in the US. ‘Stop the Cyborgs’ might sound like the rallying cry of the next Terminator film, but this is the start of a campaign to ensure places of work, cafes, bars and public spaces are no-go areas for Google Glass. They’ve already produced stickers to put up informing people that they should take off their Glass...

/... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/9939933/Google-Glass-Orwellian-surveillance-with-fluffier-branding.html

[MotherPetrie]

1. K&R

[arcane1]

2. I certainly won't be conversing with anyone who is wearing those absurd things

It would be like talking to someone while they simultaneously send text messages and make video of me with their phone.

[CrispyQ]

3. They will get to see my pet, Flip the Bird, fly.

[Blanks]

4. Once it's incorporated into the frame of a pair of glasses...

You aren't going to know.

I wouldn't worry too much about it though. There isn't enough bandwidth as it is to watch videos all the time; let alone record videos and stream them from everywhere all the time.

[Ghost Dog]

7. I wouldn't underestimte the highly creative capacity of Google's probably essentially innocentpeople

to work out what do with very large amounts of data...

Just look at Streetview, for example.

[Blanks]

8. There's a lot of really fascinating stuff going on.

and I don't believe for a minute that it won't one day be possible, but I've seen (in fact I see it daily) what happens when you try to run to much stuff through a finite amount of bandwidth; this might seem like a cool idea to some people, but if all they ever do is wait (like we do at home if 3 people are streaming videos) it will get old fast.

That will, no doubt, be overcome at some point; the world isn't ready for it yet in my experience. I could be wrong, but this isn't cool enough to wait very long for.

There's cooler stuff on the horizon, but what do I know I thought twitter was lame (still do) and it seems to be going strong.

[sabrina 1]

5. I imagine there will be big business in developing protections from this spying.

I hope someone is working on it right now. Wish I could, but don't have a clue about how all this works.

[backscatter712]

9. Most of the protection will be asking people to take those damned things off.

You walk into a business, the security guard will tell you to put them away.

There are already cafes setting rules for their customers - no Google Glasses - put them away, or one of the staff will have a word with you.

That'd be my suggestion - tell people to stop the gargoyle act and take the glasses off.

[sabrina 1]

10. But what if they start using ordinary glasses so you don't know who is spying and who is not?

I'd like to have something to block them ready for that eventuality. I can see all kinds of safety issues involved with this, aside from the privacy issue.

Because we know technology is advancing at such a fast pace, shouldn't something be done now to preempt the invasion of privacy and the danger this presents, before it happens?

Just not thrilled to think some lunatic could find out where you live eg. But money trumps everything, it seems.

[Teamster Jeff]

6. Things are getting very weird