// ARS TECHNICA — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
Bug turns one of the biggest fears about Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses into reality
Some Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses were recording people’s conversations without the wearer knowing. The recordings occurred without users saying the prompt phrase (“Hey, Meta”), in a bug that Meta says has been fixed.
This week, some users reported online that their Ray-Ban Metas were recording without their consent. A person going by Kindly-Audience-137 on Reddit, for example, said this happened to them across three Meta Ray-Bans and that they had the “Respond without Hey Meta” setting turned off. The person said the Meta AI app “saves audio recordings and text transcripts of these conversations in my conversation history.”
“I believe this deserves a serious technical investigation. Customers should not have to wonder whether their private conversations are being captured when they have not intentionally activated their glasses’ AI assistant,” the Reddit user said.
Android Authority reported the discussions on Tuesday. Later that day it published a response from Meta that read:
“This issue has been resolved. People can manage, review, and delete voice logs of their interactions with Meta AI via settings at any time.”
Although Meta’s brief message suggests that the bug is fixed, the broader privacy problem remains.
Meta hasn’t said what caused the Ray-Ban Metas to record people without user consent. Reddit user Kindly-Audience-137 said they “first noticed this behavior after a recent firmware update,” but Meta hasn’t confirmed if a faulty update caused the bug.
We also don’t know how many Meta smart glasses were affected. There are a few reports online, but Android Authority said it was unable to replicate the problem before Meta said it fixed it.
Ars Technica sent Meta a message asking what it’s doing to prevent future bugs like this from happening again and how many devices were affected. We’ll update this article if we hear back.
Even a handful of affected devices is cause for concern, though.