Tech companies urged to install “clearer indicators” on smart glasses

CW: Doxing, harassment

Smart Glasses are becoming more and more popular, as technology continues to evolve. The tech allows users to make phone calls, listen to music and take photos/videos without too much hassle. But there is a dark side to the development, which has been outed this week.

​An American TikTokker, who goes by @itspolokidd on Instagram, has been slammed for taking videos of Aussie women - at Bondi Beach - without consent.

The social media star, who boasts 1.2million followers on Insta, flirts with multiple women whilst filming them - something he’s been labelled a “creep” for doing.

A technology expert, from RMIT University, spoke to Youth Jam’s Isaac Mulcrone on the Newsflash podcast and suggested technology companies play a larger role in preventing similar incidents from happening again.

“I think we don’t ask the tech companies to take enough responsibility for the things that they put out in the world. At the moment the glasses do have a small indicator in one corner that is a little LED that pops up and says ‘these glasses are recording’, but other than that they look like a really normal pair of sunglasses,” Dr Dana Mckay, a senior lecturer in innovative interactive technologies, told listeners.

Dr Mckay has suggested “clearer indicators” should be implemented on devices.

“Maybe the social media or the tech companies need to be making clearer indicators that the glasses are recording, but maybe it needs to be more obvious that the glasses can record. That they don’t just look like normal Ray-Bans, that they actually look a bit more like what they are, which is a recording and internet-enabled device,” she went on to add.

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