This is another example on privacy/ data and identity protection implications, when Google Glass potentially gather images, video and other data about almost anything a user sees.
I'm really looking forward to Google Glass — not enough to pay the $1500 as a developer, but probably enough to try and get hold of a set once they are released.
Whilst there are likely privacy implications with Google Glass, I would not want to see them banned outright — I think that we need to give nascent technology an opportunity to prove itself, and there will be benefits, both those which we can predict and those which we cannot, to balance against privacy (and other, potentially unpredicted) harms. Perhaps, too, rather than regulating through law, we will see greater regulation through behavioural norms and private actors: for example, banning the wearing of Google Glass in certain places. Cinemas, for example, seem a pretty obvious example.
Whether there is a data protection angle is perhaps less clear — from the perspective of modern behaviour, the decision of Lindqvist, for example, seems to sit in stark contrast with the reality of Facebook and the like, and the gradual consumerisation of technologies which were formerly the reserve of companies gradually extends the scope of the "domestic purposes" exemption. Even if an individual wearer of Google Glass were to be a data controller, would they have any obligations, given this exemption?
I'm really looking forward to Google Glass — not enough to pay the $1500 as a developer, but probably enough to try and get hold of a set once they are released.
ReplyDeleteWhilst there are likely privacy implications with Google Glass, I would not want to see them banned outright — I think that we need to give nascent technology an opportunity to prove itself, and there will be benefits, both those which we can predict and those which we cannot, to balance against privacy (and other, potentially unpredicted) harms. Perhaps, too, rather than regulating through law, we will see greater regulation through behavioural norms and private actors: for example, banning the wearing of Google Glass in certain places. Cinemas, for example, seem a pretty obvious example.
Whether there is a data protection angle is perhaps less clear — from the perspective of modern behaviour, the decision of Lindqvist, for example, seems to sit in stark contrast with the reality of Facebook and the like, and the gradual consumerisation of technologies which were formerly the reserve of companies gradually extends the scope of the "domestic purposes" exemption. Even if an individual wearer of Google Glass were to be a data controller, would they have any obligations, given this exemption?