Women secretly recorded via Meta Smart Glasses face harassment and monetization on TikTok without consent.
Victims of Covert Recording
A BBC investigation reveals the helplessness against technology. It recounts the story of 21-year-old Dilara, who, during a work break, became prey to a digital predator. A man approaching her under the guise of conversation was actually streaming to thousands via Meta glasses. The result: harassing phone calls at 3 a.m. and a constant sense of being trapped. Equally striking is the case of 56-year-old Kim. Her beach image, annotated with family and work details, became “training material” for a self-proclaimed dating coach. With 6.9 million views and a wave of immoral propositions, she paid the price for someone’s profit from viral content. Both women share one thing: neither saw the LED warning light that should have alerted them to being recorded, nor did they consent to being part of anyone’s business.
The Abuse Ecosystem
The stories of Dilara and Kim are not isolated cases of improper technology use. They are the logical consequence of a tool designed for surreptitious reality recording. Meta has effectively turned every user into a mobile surveillance unit. The issue lies not just in the device but in the entire abuse ecosystem. The mechanism is terrifyingly efficient: unauthorized recordings in public spaces land on platforms like TikTok, where algorithms promote them as “dating advice.” Creators earn from reach, paid subscriptions, and dating coaching, leaving victims with trauma and violated security. It is a pathological business model where strangers’ intimacy is free “content.”
Corporate Cynicism and Legal Loopholes
Meta’s response, highlighting the LED recording indicator, is an act of cynicism. In a world where instructions to cover or disable the light are available in two clicks, such safeguards are merely a fig leaf. This is a classic example of security theater—protecting the corporation from liability, not third parties. Meta’s engineers are world-class; it is hard to believe they failed to foresee how easily such primitive protections could be bypassed. Instead, the company externalizes costs, reaping profits from sales and data while shifting societal costs—loss of privacy and reputational battles—onto individuals and legal systems. Current frameworks appear powerless. If law cannot classify mass harassment from public recordings as illegal, a dangerous legislative gap exists, exploited ruthlessly by tech giants.
Systemic Paradox: Infrastructure Over Citizens
Polish lawmakers exhibit glaring inconsistency. In recent years, legal systems have been swiftly tightened to protect strategic objects: severe fines and equipment confiscation await those photographing bridges or stations without permission. The state has proven it can react swiftly and decisively against smartphone surveillance. Why then is there similar determination lacking in protecting citizens’ dignity and privacy from commercial surveillance? Current copyright laws (Art. 81) regarding image protection are anachronistic in the wearable tech era. They allow creators of “dating advice” to prey in a gray area, treating victims merely as “details of the whole.” Consequently, Polish law effectively protects concrete infrastructure over women from unwanted viral debuts and subsequent mass harassment.
Toward Digital Safeguards
Pandora’s box is open, but it does not absolve us from building a digital quarantine. We must shift from passive observation of technology to active citizen protection. The foundation of change should be enforceable design liability and stringent sanctions for manufacturers offering easily circumvented safeguards. Simultaneously, commercial surveillance must be precisely criminalized, defined as monetizing third-party images without explicit consent. Crucially, platforms must bear financial algorithmic responsibility for promoting harmful content for reach, making them accomplices to harassment. Only hitting tech giants’ bottom lines can force privacy to stop being treated as an unnecessary cost of progress. If we do not say “stop” now, public space will cease to belong to citizens, becoming owned by algorithms and engagement hunters.
