Students adapt Meta's data glasses to Dox strangers in real time | Science and technology news

Two students have made smart glasses with facial recognition technology to find out strangers' private information.

A video demonstration shows one of the Harvard students using the technology to quickly find out details about the woman sitting next to him at a Boston train station.

“Wait, are you Betsy?” he asks her. Betsy is a complete stranger and he has only heard of her seconds before.

“I think I met you through the Cambridge Community Foundation, right?”

She smiles, stands up to greet him and shakes his hand.

AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio led the demonstration to show how easily smart glasses can be used maliciously.

“Are we ready for a world where our data is revealed at a glance?” asked Mr. Nguyen in a post on X.

Mr. Nguyen, who studies human augmentation, and Mr. Ardayfio, who studies physics, developed the facial recognition glasses using tools that are readily available in the market.

They used a couple Metas Smart Ray Bans and streamed its live footage to a computer, where AI was used to detect when the glasses were looking at a face.

Using this first live image, the computer searched for additional images of the person and then searched voter registration databases and news articles.

Using these publicly available sources, the two students were able to quickly identify people's names, phone numbers, home addresses, and even the names of relatives.

In a video shared online, the experiment is repeated over and over again, with Mr. Nguyen and Mr. Ardayfio testing it on the Harvard campus to the shock of their fellow students.

“What about John and Susan?” They asked a woman.

“These are my parents…” she replied, horrified.

Read more: Facebook and Ray-Ban launch a range of smart glasses

“This is intended to be a demonstration to raise awareness of what is possible with consumer technology today,” Mr. Nguyen said, adding that the pair will not release the code used to develop the program.

“It’s too dangerous,” Mr. Nguyen told one of his supporters.

Meta told Sky News that the Ray Bans do not have facial recognition technology and will also emit a sound and light to indicate to others that the glasses are recording.

Read more from science and technology:
“Most impressive comet of the year” will burn in the night sky
Musk attacks after “summit snub”.
“Mini-Moon” is about to enter Earth’s orbit

Follow Sky News on WhatsApp

Keep up to date with the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News

Tap here

The sound and recording light cannot be disabled by the user. When the light is completely covered, the user is prompted to remove obstacles before taking a photo or video.

“As far as we know, these students are simply using publicly available facial recognition software on a computer that works with photos taken with any camera, phone or recording device,” a Meta spokesperson said.