According to TechCrunch.Meta The company confirms that users with Ray-Ban Meta Smart glassesThe photos and videos taken may be used to train its AI models.
In regions where multimodal AI is available (currently the U.S. and Canada)," said Emil Vazquez, Meta's manager of policy communications, in an email.Images and videos shared with Meta AI may be used to improve our AI models, which is consistent with our privacy policy."
Previously, a Meta spokesperson clarified that as long as users don't submit photos and videos to the AI, that data won't be used to train Meta's AI models. However, once a user asks Meta AI to analyze those photos, they are subject to a different policy. In other words, the only way to avoid this is to not use Meta's multimodal AI features.
The practice raises concerns because Ray-Ban Meta users may not realize that they are providing Meta with a large number of images for training its AI models, which may contain information about their home interiors, loved ones, or personal files, among other things.
Meta announced a new Ray-Ban Meta real-time video analytics feature at last week's 2024 Connect conference, which essentially sends a continuous stream of images to Meta's multimodal AI models. In a promotional video Meta says users can use the feature to view their closet, analyze their entire closet with AI, and pick out an outfit. What the company doesn't mention is that users are also sending these images to Meta for AI model training.
The Meta spokesperson said its privacy policy explicitly states that "interactions with AI features can be used to train AI models." The spokesperson also referred to Meta AI's terms of service, which state that by sharing images with Meta AI, "you agree that Meta will use AI to analyze those images, including facial features."
Among the Meta's other privacy policies, there is also a default storage of all transcribed files of voice conversations with the Ray-Ban Meta to train future AI models. As for actual voice recordings, there is a way for users to opt out. When a user logs into the Ray-Ban Meta app for the first time, they can choose whether or not to allow voice recordings to be used to train Meta's AI models.