Facebook wants to add facial recognition to its highly anticipated smart glasses that will hit the market next year.
At a meeting for all employees, Andrew Bosworth, director of Facebook Reality Labs, said the company was investigating the legal and privacy-related impact of the technology, BuzzFeed reports.
He warned that the benefits and risks were clear, “and we don’t know where to balance those things.”
Facial recognition would help a user recognize someone whose name they have forgotten, Bosworth theorized, or if they have face blindness.
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Andrew Bosworth, director of Facebook Reality Labs, said the company is investigating the legal and privacy-related implications of adding facial recognition technology to its upcoming smart glasses.
At the company-wide meeting, an unnamed employee asked Bosworth about concerns about the privacy of facial recognition, including stalkers.
[That] is perhaps the thorniest question, ”Bosworth replied. “Where the benefits are so clear, and the risks so clear, and we don’t know where to weigh those things.”
Privacy has been a painful topic for Facebook, which is pending $ 650 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it violated the Illinois ‘Biometric Information Privacy Act by using members’ data to tag people in photos.
“Facial recognition is a hugely controversial topic and for good reason,” Bosworth tweeted. “… I was talking about how to have a very public discussion about the pros and cons.”
Facebook’s Ray-Bans brand smart glasses are expected later this year. Bosworth said the company should have ‘a very public discussion of the pros and cons’ of adding facial recognition tools to the device
While Facebook’s smart glasses would be “ fine ” without the ability to identify faces, he added, there are some “ fun use cases, ” such as forgetting someone’s name at a dinner party.
He also referred to people with prosopagnosia, or blindness, a neurological condition that makes it difficult to recognize familiar faces.
Maxine Williams, Facebook’s Chief Diversity Officer, added that the company may need to develop its own privacy guidelines in areas where the technology is not legally regulated, BuzzFeed reported.
Mark Zuckerberg revealed in September that Facebook teamed up with Luxottica Group on some clever Ray-Bans.
Beyond that, the social media giant has been intentionally vague about its plans, even when the wearables will be available.
In a blog post in January, Bosworth teased that the devices will “ arrive sooner than later. ”
He told Bloomberg that the smart glasses could improve a person’s life in a way that a smartphone can’t, like capture a moment with your kids.
Mark Zuckerberg revealed in September that Facebook teamed up with Luxottica Group on some clever Ray-Bans. That aside, the company has been intentionally vague about what it has to offer
By the time you pick up the phone, you probably haven’t just missed it, but if you don’t miss it, you’re probably watching the real event, but through your phone, ”he said. “If you have the right technology, it can get out of the way.”
That suggests the glasses will include a camera or some other means of capturing and storing moments.
They may not include augmented reality (AR) technology, which superimposes digital objects over real-word environments.
‘These are definitely connected glasses, they certainly offer a lot of functionality, [but] we are quite cautious about exactly what functionality we provide, ”said Bosworth.
‘We are enthusiastic about it, but we do not want to overdo it. We don’t even call it augmented reality, we just call it ‘smart glasses’.
Another product from Facebook Reality Labs, the Oculus Quest 2, just added a new feature – users can interact with the headset by saying the phrase ‘Hey Facebook’.
‘This will be a gradual rollout,’ the company said in a blog post, ‘but you can find and enable the wake word from our experimental features settings, then say’ Hey Facebook, take a screenshot ‘,’ Hey Facebook, shows me who’s online, “Hey Facebook, open Supernatural” or any of our other voice commands to get started. ”
The wake-word feature is opt-in and will not work when the microphone is off or when the headset is sleeping or turned off.
It began rolling out on Quest 2 headsets on Thursday and will be added to the original Quest over time.