You are in line for Google Glass 5GS (hereafter as Augmented Reality Device or ARD): yours for only $599.99 and your soul for the next two years. Assume that the technological hurdles of energy and bandwidth consumption have been overcome. Assume that a relatively simple application is streaming live video from the ARD to the cloud for face processing. In fact, those are not assumptions, we already have that technology. We just can’t mount it on spectacles and sell it to millions of people… yet.
One of the first face recognition applications will search the registered sex offender database, police mugshot database, and the rest of WWW and display the relevant information near the individual. It will store all faces in your private database: “You saw this dude a year ago in NY. Would you like to name him Creepy Kyle?” Because the ARD knows where and when it is, you may get a message like this: “Ginger Jenny visits the Snowflake Cafe between 6pm and 8pm except Saturdays.” And yes, people do voluntarily check into establishments on Facebook and Yelp and FourSquare but, the technology in question will track you sans your knowledge and consent. Remember, The Constitution protects the people’s privacy from the government; the regulations — what little of them we do have — from corporations. We have no legal framework to protect our privacy from each other. I can legally spy on you 24/7. Like no other before it, this technology greatly enhances my ability to do so.
CCTV-style systems are capable of this today. The difference is that an ordinary citizen will be in voyeur heaven that fits in his/her pocket. Fundamentally, we have no right to privacy while walking on the [public] street. Arguably that’s because at the time “reasonable expectation of privacy” doctrine was established, we had no idea that one day every bit one’s dirty laundry shall be found on one’s forehead. Not only will the augmented reality effectively attach a name/history tag to everyone, it will encourage creation of rating databases, Yelp for people so to speak: “86 reviewers found this person to be a jackass, 5 reviewers found this person to be a cheater.” This is not your typical Crystal Cox affair, this is defamation lawsuits on a scale intractable to existing law enforcement and judicial systems. Ratings are opinions however, these opinions are now etched on your face, forever. It is one thing to look at a business establishment and see a list of its political contributions, it is another to walk past a girl on a street and see her photos from http://www.exgfpics.com.
There is no question of whether the technology will get there, only a question of whether the law can catch up. Should the law require ARDs to recognize an “opt out” signal broadcast by the bearer’s phone or ARD? An “opt out” signal broadcast by an appliance in one’s residence or business? A wearable “opt out” device? Or perhaps go guerrilla and wear earrings with infrared LEDs blinding the cameras? Wear masks in public, which is illegal in France? Come to think of it, who needs your face? A picture of your hand is even better: “FingerPrint v3.6, now with international databases!”
The law is not ready for this technology, and neither are we ready to give up the last sliver of privacy we have. It is unclear what changes ARDs will bring. What is clear is that without an active collaboration of legal, legislative, and technology professionals we may one day find ourselves playing out one of Philip K. Dick’s short stories, and we will not like it.
Don’t get me wrong: I love technology. And am neither advocating for draconian regulation nor technological restraint. I merely wish to address the other edge of this sword. The weapon of productivity we shall all soon no doubt embrace.
I abstain from discussing how this technology alters the standard operating procedures of law enforcement, for this subject is far and wide and requires a tome or two to do it proper justice. Some of the more traditional applications of augmented reality are depicted in this short video.
False Metrics 