Not ready for your closeup?
A new app will be able to tell you if someone nearby is wearing smart glasses.
Smart glasses often look just like regular glasses, so if someone nearby is wearing one of these “luxury surveillance” devices, it’s possible you’re being recorded without your knowledge.
The new app, fittingly named Nearby Glasses, scans for nearby signals from Bluetooth-enabled devices, such as Meta and Snap wearables, and potentially other always-on recording devices.
Nearby Glasses works by listening for Bluetooth signals with a publicly assigned identifier unique to the device’s manufacturer. If it detects a nearby device made by Meta or Snap, the app will alert the user.
It also allows users to add their own Bluetooth identifiers in order to detect an even wider range of wearable tech.
To keep the app scanning in real time, users will need to enable foreground service, then they’ll press “start scanning,” and a debug log will show the app’s activity.
The app’s developer, Yves Jeanrenaud, described smart glasses as an “intolerable intrusion, consent-neglecting, horrible piece of tech” on the app’s project page.
Speaking to TechCrunch, he shared that he was motivated by “witnessing the sheer scale and inhumane nature of the abuse these smart glasses are involved in.”
Jeanrenaud also referred to Meta’s decision to make face recognition a default feature for their smart classes, which he “considers to be a huge floodgate pushed open for all kinds of privacy-invasive behavior.”
He first told 404 Media that he was inspired to make the app after reading their reporting about wearable surveillance devices, including how the Meta smart glasses were worn by a Customers and Border Protection (CBP) agent during an immigration raid in Los Angeles, or how users were wearing them to film and harass sex workers.
However, Jeanrenaud acknowledged that the app could be prone to false positives and could potentially detect something like a virtual reality headset made by Meta and alert the user, thinking it’s smart glasses made by Meta — though virtual reality headsets tend to be more physically obvious to anyone looking out for them.
He described Nearby Glasses as a “desperate act of resistance, hoping it would help at least someone.”
“Of course, it’s a technical solution to a social problem (which is amplified by technology), and it won’t go away anytime soon,” Jeanrenaud said.
As of now, the app is only available for Android, and Jeanrenaud said there is demand for an iPhone version, but it would depend on his spare time and availability — though he is still adding new features to the current app.
The page for the app on Google Play Store says that after a device is identified, the user “may act accordingly.”
Jeanrenaud shared that he can image this may include something similar to when a woman on the subway in NYC allegedly broke a man’s smart glasses while he was filming — “or people just tell them politely to f–k off.”
The app comes as smart glasses has sparked conversation around increased privacy concerns, and users on Reddit seem to be welcoming this form of what Jeanrenaud dubbed “techsolutionism.”
“Cant wait to loudly shame anyone recording with these so everyone in the area can get as far away from these creepy fucks. Hate the concept of these glasses, so easy to abuse too,” one person wrote.
“It’s disturbing af that this is even needed,” someone admitted.
“It’s a start,” another added.
