Meta is adding a new safeguard to stop people from secretly recording others with its AI glasses. But the update comes as the company continues to expand how much personal data its…

Meta’s AI glasses have a growing reputation as a creepy technology. The company hopes to change that opinion by announcing an update that will disable the camera if the LED light that indicates the glasses are recording has been tampered with. The move is seemingly a concession to consumer sentiment that the glasses aren’t just fun, fashionable accessories, happily promoted by Kylie Jenner, but have serious implications for consumer privacy: They can be abused as surveillance devices. Yet, even as Meta touts the new safeguard this week, the company is also pushing products and features that ask users to surrender more of their privacy to the company. Whether that’s training its AI on your images, enabling AI features using your personal content unless you opt out, or exploring ways to continuously record or use biometric facial recognition, Meta’s vision of the future seems to always depend on collecting more of your personal data. In its blog post about the new camera safety feature, the company pats itself on the back, noting that “no other kind of camera has done this and we’re proud to lead the industry effort.” However, Meta also admits that the move was necessary because some people had been using tape to cover the LED light, which had already forced Meta to adapt its tech to disable recording when the LED is blocked. Determined, those same AI glasses creeps would then use “sophisticated efforts to modify or destroy the capture LED,” Meta’s announcement explains. In other words, Meta is confirming that some people who use AI glasses have hidden agendas — namely a desire to record situations or people (often women) without their consent. Despite this, the company is reportedly testing a prototype of AI glasses that would “continuously collect audio while taking photos every few seconds,” sources recently told Financial Times.