On the 17 of September 2021, the Irish Data Protection Authority (DPC) has issued a statement on a Facebook news, Facebook View, realized in cooperation with Ray-Ban.
The declaration was affirming that during the previous week Facebook Ireland has announced the introduction of a technical innovation on behalf of the company, the smart sunglasses – Facebook View – in cooperation with Ray-Ban in Ireland and Italy.
It is about sunglasses that the user can wear and with which he/she can register short videos or images by using the voice control and then publishing them on the social media.
The Irish and Italian Data Protection Authorities express serious worries about the method used in order to inform who is recorded into video or images. Even if is recognized that devices, like smartphones, can register videos of third parties, generally speaking the photo camera or the phone as a recorder could be seen by the person who appears into the video/image. For this reason, it should be clear to those one who appear into photo/video that it has been taken a photo or recorded a video. Sunglasses have a small light during the registration.
Both the Authorities are worried that Facebook or Ray-Ban have not carried out appropriate test in order to establish if the light is a sufficient way in order to inform people who are recorded.
For this reason, Authorities have found out proofs and confirmations that the light is doing its job. In addition, the Authorities are asking that it is launched a campaign in order to inform consumers on how this new device can bring to the registration of people so that they are less likely to notice it.