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April 23rd – May 06th 2013
Technology DIGITAL SOCIETY
Google Glass and the end of privacy
‘Wearable technologies’ are not welcomed by London activists
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By Rafael Cabral world in which privacy does not exist and human contact becomes cold and robotic, with our minds interminably connected to the internet. This is the grim future portrayed in ‘Sight’ (https://vimeo.com/46304267), a short science-fiction film attracting great attention that increasingly sounds more and more like reality. The film’s main character is Patrick, an employee of the fictitious company Sight, who have created an internet and computer that can be accessed directly from the brain, where information appears mixed with the real images in a so-called ‘augmented reality’. In his search for love, Patrick can use Sight to research would-be girlfriends and find exactly what to say to win her over. While successful at first, when his girlfriend finds him out, things get even more sinister as he hacks into the mechanism to force her to stay. While this vision of a dystopian future hasn’t arrived (yet), the growing interest and popularity of ‘wearable technologies’ is raising similar problems, especially regarding the end of privacy and the excessive presence of the internet (with its giant corporations) in our lives. All this seems quite topical with the launch of the most commented technological product in recent years, Google Glass, a connected pair of glasses that accesses the web, make calls, send messages, show maps, access programs - everything a smartphone can do and more, but responding to voice commands and sending the information directly to the eye of the user.
The big question: Is it worth threatening our privacy in exchange for another technological toy? I don’t want to sound too alarmist - the product is quite promising and has very interesting functions, already advertised by Google and repeated through the tech press. However, the importance and usefulness of a new technology like Glass will be defined by the social norms our society will establish for its use. The big question is: Is it really worth threatening our privacy for the sake of yet another technological toy? In spite of the usual fascination with shiny-new digital gadgets, there are people around the world questioning its role in our lives and society. A group of activists from London, gathered around an organization called “Stop the Cyborgs’, is trying to impose restrictions on the use of Glass, such as the banishment of the device of some places and occasions. The organisation believes that companies interested in the ‘augmented reality’ sector should commit to certain ethical rules like the prohibition of the development of face recognition software.
The idea is not to stop the technical evolution or the adoption of connected glasses, but to make sure people can participate in the creation of the etiquette for the use of new technologies rather than accepting automatically the direction in which ‘progress’ leads them. If this discussion is not raised and
thoroughly debated, it is not impossible that we get ever closer to the future offered in ‘Sight ‘, in which we are slaves of our tools and a world in which our right to privacy is treated as an expensive luxury in the hands of big corporations. Technology aside, is this the future we want?