Google Glasses and the End of Anonymity

Firstly, I apologize for the delay in new posts. I have been moody and had some things on my mind.

Now I want to discuss the new Google glasses. Have you heard about these? You put them on and have a little display that is basically your personal assistant and access to the internet. Oh it also works as a phone and video recorder. Here is an article about them which includes a video showing how they will work. If nothing else, watch the video.

Wired - Google Gets Transparent With Glass, Its Augmented Reality Project

So, what did you think of the glasses. The first thing that I want to point out was that the glasses mapped out where the music section was in the store. How did it know? Google maps of the inside of buildings? Interesting isn't it? The next thing you may have noticed is that the wearer asked if his friend had arrived at the store yet and because his friend has his phones gps on, he knew he was only a couple hundred feet away. Now lets look at something else and you will begin to understand what the glasses can really do.

PC World - Why Facebook's Facial Recognition is Creepy

Facebook has implemented facial recognition technology that allows it to surf the web and identify pictures of you from anywhere. Lets consider what might happen if we combined the two technologies. Walking down the street, you see a pretty girl and have you glasses find pictures of her on the internet and attempt to identify her or see if you have any common friends in your social network. She notices you also and does the same except she discovers that you are a registered sex offender. Yep, when you were in high school at 18, you slept with your girlfriend of 17 and the parents had you prosecuted. It would just say that your a sex offender 20 years later. How do I know, because I met someone who was in that situation. Perhaps your still good with all of this; but, lets continue down this path.

She blows you off and you continue walking. You next see an old friend and have the glasses scan the internet for more current information on him. While you are doing that, the search engine reports and records you photo of him and someone who has been waiting to serve him legal papers gets a notification of where he is because you saw him. Is this getting scary yet? Lets consider this even deeper, you see someone, the image is sent back to the internet, it matches someone who the police are interested in and they get live streaming video of what you are seeing and what the person is doing. You have become an informant and didn't even know it.

We are looking at a coming world where everyone is self reporting and reporting on everyone else. When you post someone's picture on the internet without their approval, you are violating their privacy. You are also giving away their personal information because you are giving away their biometric identity. When you use the glasses you are making a recording of everything you have done during the day. Try and think about these things as new technologies emerge.