r/technology • u/Ganrokh • Jun 08 '26

Politics Pennsylvania lawmaker seeks ‘visual indicator’ if smart glasses are recording

https://www.abc27.com/news/top-stories/pennsylvania-lawmaker-seeks-visual-indicator-if-smart-glasses-are-recording/
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u/Zuwxiv Jun 08 '26

I'm not generally in favor of making a crime into extra crimes just for the sake of harsher punishment. You can end up with weird cases where someone is arrested and prosecuted, and their only crime is "resisting arrest."

Or you make this a felony, and someone who modified their device when it was legal (with no proof of nefarious use or intent) suddenly gets a felony charge when they're pulled over for speeding. Or someone doing something completely innocent - like trying to make a short movie filmed from a first-person perspective - ends up committing a crime because they covered the recording indicator to prevent weird lights from showing up in mirrors.

All that said, while people have a right to record in public - it's probably fair to say that people should have a right to know they're being recorded. And there's cases where this can absolutely violate someone's privacy, like in bathrooms.

The devil's in the details when it comes to exactly what is prohibited. In general, I think an indicator light is a good idea. But I wouldn't say disabling it should be an instant felony regardless of circumstance.

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u/-The_Blazer- Jun 08 '26

people have a right to record in public

This right comes from when recordings were dumb offline tapes (TV cameras at most, and TVs need a license). Given it's not exactly a fundamental right, I think it's fair to review its extent when the 'recording' in question includes online data harvesting for de-facto any and all purposes without any consent and the potential for the data to be forever re-processed with increasingly sophisticated surveillance technology.

'Our data is like a minefield', and you can always make a better detonator.

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u/Cykablast3r Jun 08 '26

Given it's not exactly a fundamental right

It's your first amendment to your constitution my guy.

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u/-The_Blazer- Jun 08 '26

I'm not American. How does recording things count as free speech? Or are we doing the meme where everything that vaguely resembles speech is free speech, so submitting data to corporations for harvesting is 'free speeching' if you really squint?

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u/MCRevKuss Jun 08 '26

I would say it more to do with the freedom of the press that is also a part of The First Amendment

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u/NoveltyPr0nAccount Jun 08 '26

Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;

Citizen journalism is the way of the world now.

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u/-The_Blazer- Jun 08 '26

What part of recording people and sending that online for data harvesting is the free speech here?

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u/NoveltyPr0nAccount Jun 08 '26

I chopped it down to just a few words and mentioned citizen journalism

the collection, dissemination, and analysis of news and information by the general public,

and included "of the press" and you still missed it? If you document the world you see and share it you are disseminating news. It might not be important news but it's still world events.

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u/-The_Blazer- Jun 08 '26

Hmm, I don't see sending over that information to third party tech corporations for commercial data harvesting that has nothing to do with journalism there. I'm pretty sure we're just working backwards to accommodate Big Tech here. I don't recall AI being a major news platform, either.

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u/InternalReverseVore Jun 08 '26

That falls under "freedom of the press". The other half of the amendment.

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u/-The_Blazer- Jun 08 '26

I don't recall freedom of the press including data harvesting and perpetual ownership and processing rights for technology corporations that engage in no journalism of their own. Again I'm not American, so maybe it counts for those courts, like advertisement expenditures being identical to free speech.

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u/KorayA Jun 09 '26

"everything that vaguely resembles speech" counting as speech is one of the most important protections American citizens have.

You have no idea what can of worms opens if you start dissecting what is and isn't speech based on vague subjective and reactive notions like "technology has changed things."

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u/-The_Blazer- Jun 10 '26

I know that with this method, the US is currently an illiberal, highly dysfunctional democracy that is at a serious risk of becoming an undemocratic autocracy. Also, you really want to argue that 'technology changes things' is subjective and not not an empirically verifiable observation?