Smart glasses that can be worn inconspicuously and used to record videos at a moment's notice could soon become very popular. However, their growing appeal also raises serious privacy concerns.
As you might expect, Samsung and Google have taken extra precautions with their new Intelligent Eyewear lineup, aiming to protect the privacy of users and bystanders alike.
Numerous safeguards are in place, including an LED indicator that lights up whenever the glasses are recording. Everything seems well thought out, but prioritizing privacy also comes at a cost that could give Samsung's main competitor a slight edge when it comes to live-streaming content.
Intelligent Eyewear glasses are prohibited from social live-streaming
One of the numerous privacy policies Google has established for Intelligent Eyewear states the following:
- Google Play: Policies prohibit apps from using the camera for social live-streaming or real-time facial identification, and from changing the behavior of the outer indicator light.
In other words, if you want to use your Warby Parker or Gentle Monster smart glasses for IRL (in real life) social streaming, you're out of luck. Google Play's policies explicitly prohibit apps from using Intelligent Eyewear cameras for this purpose.
Google and Samsung are taking a different approach to privacy than Meta, whose Ray-Ban smart glasses offer native support for streaming directly to Instagram Live and Facebook Live. Incidentally, Meta owns both platforms.
Intelligent Eyewear users can upload videos recorded with their glasses to YouTube, provided those videos comply with the platform's policies. However, live-streaming directly to YouTube from Samsung's smart glasses won't be possible.
Will that change in the future? Unknown. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, also owns YouTube, so the possibility that Samsung and Google might eventually allow Intelligent Eyewear users to live-stream directly to the platform doesn't seem far-fetched. But time will tell.
For now, Samsung's smart glasses focus more on private visual sharing through one-on-one video calls and object recognition powered by Gemini. Google's privacy policies might inconvenience IRL live streamers, but this approach also offers clear privacy benefits for everyone around Intelligent Eyewear users. It's a trade-off.
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