AI Meta Mirrors is reportedly sending sensitive images to human reviewers in Kenya
Meta’s AI-powered smart glasses may have sent sensitive images to human reviewers in Nairobi, Kenya, according to an investigation by Swedish outlets. Svenska Dagbladet again Göteborgs-Posten. The report, published last week, says that Meta contractors in Kenya have seen videos captured by smart glasses showing “toilet visits, sex and other intimate moments.”
So far, at least one proposed class-action lawsuit has emerged accusing Meta of violating false advertising and privacy laws. Svenska DagbladetReporting, citing the company’s claim that its smart glasses are designed for privacy:
By ensuring that the Glasses were designed to protect privacy, Meta took on the task of revealing important facts that could inform a consumer’s rational decision to purchase the product. Instead, Meta has hidden a shocking truth: that the use of AI features causes a stranger in the middle of the world to watch the most private moments of a person’s life.
Nairobi-based contractors interviewed are Svenska Dagbladet they are AI annotations, meaning they label images, text, or audio, with the goal of helping AI systems make sense of the data they train. “We see everything – from living rooms to naked bodies,” said one employee, according to the report Svenska Dagbladet. “Meta has that kind of content in its databases.”
A former Meta employee is said to be telling Svenska Dagbladet faces in the annotation data are automatically blurred, although staff in Kenya say this “doesn’t always work as intended,” and some faces are still visible. Another person is said to be telling the store that the wearer’s bank cards are sometimes visible in the photos they review.
Ray-Ban and Oakley’s Meta smart glasses come with a built-in AI assistant that can answer questions about what the user can see. Glasses have grown in popularity in recent years, despite growing concerns about privacy and surveillance.
EssilorLuxottica, the eyewear giant Meta is working with to develop camera-equipped glasses, has sold more than 7 million AI-powered glasses by 2025 – more than tripling its sales in 2023 and 2024 combined. Last year, Meta made some changes to its privacy policy that kept Meta AI from using the camera enabled on your glasses “unless you turn off ‘Hey Meta.'” It also stopped allowing wearers to opt out of storing their voice recordings in the cloud.
As reported by Svenska DagbladetAI reviewers based in Kenya work with the transcripts as well, ensuring that Meta AI provides the right answer to the questions users ask aloud. In a statement to The VergeMeta spokeswoman Tracy Clayton says media captured by its smart glasses “remains on the user’s device” unless they choose to share it with other people or Meta.
“When people share content with Meta AI, we sometimes use contractors to review this data for the purpose of improving people’s experiences, as do many other companies,” Clayton said. “We take steps to filter this data to protect people’s privacy and help prevent identifying information from being reviewed.”
