Dutch organization preparing lawsuit after Meta refuses to stop selling AI glasses
Meta sees no reason to withdraw its AI glasses from the market, Alex Himmel, head of Meta’s eyewear division, announced on Monday, while wearing the glasses himself. And so, advocacy group Offlimits is taking legal action to get the glasses removed from Dutch stores. The organization against online sexual abuse confirmed to NL Times that they’re working on summary proceedings and anticipate an emergency hearing, possibly on Wednesday or Thursday.
After the newspaper AD revealed that hundreds of videos of unsuspecting Dutch women and girls made with Meta glasses are circulating on “creepshot” sites and Telegram, Offlimits and The Firewall Foundation approached the Big Tech company to get the glasses off the market. Meta let the Dutch organizations’ deadline lapse and refused to engage in dialogue, according to Offlimits.
On Monday, Himel announced that Meta would not be pulling the glasses. He said that the built-in indicator light on the front of the glasses warns bystanders when the camera is recording. When asked about people simply taping over or disabling the light, he blamed “bad actors.”
Offlimits is highly critical of Meta’s response, director Robbert Hoving told the Amsterdam newspaper Parool. “It is always the user’s fault - never the fact that a product is brought to market that makes abuse easy,” Hoving said. “This applies to both the victims and the perpetrators. The company washes its hands of the matter while making huge profits. We simply do not accept that. That is why we are taking legal action.”
According to Otto Volgenant, the lawyer representing Offlimits in this case, Meta is clearly violating the law with this device. “Secretly filming other people is contrary to the fundamental right to privacy, violates the GDPR, and is often even a criminal offence. All recordings end up in Meta’s systems. Meta itself violates the GDPR, and Meta itself is committing an offence by processing all this material,” he said.