Hacker News Reader

Comment by andreyk | Hacker News Reader

Incidentally, I just bought the Gen 1 of these before departing on a trip to Japan a week ago. I gotta say, I'm very happy with the purchase - being able to take photos/videos for memory-capture type stuff (ie I don't care a lot about it being the best quality) without taking out my phone and pointing it at stuff has been great, and the speakers are surprisingly nice to use when I don't want to block out the sounds of my surroundings. To me the benefit is not being able to constantly or secretly record stuff, it's just a nicer way to use a camera to record memories on a trip that does not involve staring at a screen half the time.

View on HN

Operating such a device in Japan puts you in a legal gray area, and depending on your behaviour could result in unwanted police attention. They will respond to reports of such devices being used near spaces frequented by women or children. Act responsibly.

As it should be. I am not comfortable with the idea that creeps are just walking around taking photos of me or my family.

Don't worry nobody wants photos of you and your family

Facebook does. They make billions of dollars a year from that kind of data.

Facebook aren't "creeps", which is what the original comment was about

They are, actually. It's a company that makes money off of people's photos among other things. I get it that _you_ have no issue with it, but why would I, having never given consent to that company to store images of me, be monitored by them? They don't have a right to monetize people that don't give consent. That's creepy.

Facebook are absolutely "creeps".

Well, don't go out into public then .. because others have every right to record what you are doing in public.

Sorry - I am confused. Are you saying that we should accept creeps lurking around taking photos of people?

You should accept the fact that, while out and about in public, you have no expectation of privacy.

In your own home - sure.

Such is the price of freedom.

> Such is the price of freedom.

I am confused again. How am I free if my own persona is up for grabs by a business?

You have the freedom to be outside and also record everything you perceive.

You can't deny others that freedom and expect to attain it yourself, too.

That you don't exercise that right is immaterial and has no bearing on whether I should be able to freely exercise that right as well.

But you are not a corporation?

Corporations are composed of individual human beings who are also exercising their universal rights in the course of involvement in that corporate entity .. will you start making a special class of humans that has those rights and can exercise them, and a class that can't based on their membership in a social group?

Then: Congratulations, you've become the very repressive thing you were resisting in the first place.

Yes, this is the price of freedom: in public, where you can express yourself, and exercise your universally granted rights to free expression (and thus recording) or not - without the expectation of being impinged upon by your peers - so too can others express themselves, and exercise their same universal rights.

Its a two way street and it belongs to the public.

> Such is the price of freedom.

No. This is an example of reducing the freedom of some in order to increase the liberties of others.

The right to record is a human right.

.... somewhat ....

In the US specifically, there are protected first amendment rights.

However, plenty of people have genuine reason to be concerned. Stalkers. Witness protection. Etc. Having managed large datasets, these things come up fairly often. There's an incredible diversity of potential problems.

It's not reasonable to tell everyone who has an issue like this: "Well, don't go out into public then"

>somewhat

Its a universal human right, actually, to be able to record anything you can perceive in public ... without that right we cannot exercise political freedom or our rights as individuals for redress.

>It's not reasonable to tell everyone who has an issue like this: "Well, don't go out into public then"

Of course it is. They have equal rights - and equal opportunity, therefore, to express - or not express - these rights.

It is entirely up to the individual to make the decision to exercise those rights and to not deny them to others for any reason, as it is a fundamental, universal human right to record others in public.

Political freedom is exercized at the ballot box, not in photos of my wife.

The Right to Record is clearly protected under provisions of international human rights standards such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Universal Declaration of Human Rights that protect freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and the right to information.

The founding fathers didn't record any video, publicly or privately. They were still able to "exercise political freedom".

There's no such thing as a "fundamental, universal right" that requires the possession and use of a product.

> Its a universal human right, actually, to be able to record anything you can perceive in public

I completely disagree that this is (or should be considered) a universal human right at all.

> Its a universal human right, actually, to be able to record anything you can perceive in public ...

No. It's not. Here: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

If you believe something is a right, and most other people don't, it's definitely not a universal right.

What is an established universal human right is: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

> without that right we cannot exercise political freedom or our rights as individuals for redress.

Yes. We can. We've done it since long before cameras existed, even. Where I live is moving towards a balance where, very grossly oversimplified:

- Government officials have very little privacy protection, and first amendment trumps privacy

- Private individuals have a lot of privacy protection, and privacy trumps first amendment

That seems reasonable.

I'd like corporations to have no privacy either, but that's not where we're landing.

You're making shit up. You posted the same comment in several places, and it's false. It's not helpful or constructive.

If you believe a law says something, quote it.

Right to expression doesn't cover this, under any non-crackpot interpretation. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights even has an explicit carve-out from right to expression for the rights or reputation of others to demonstrate which one takes precedence.

If you want to make up your own laws, please go register yourself as a "sovereign citizen," and wait until someone throws you in prison (and perhaps, then, realize it doesn't work that way).

I get you'd like this to be a right enshrined in law, but it's not, and it won't be, and it can't be.

Actually, better thing to do: Go to a Muslim country, start taking photos of strangers, and then waive your claims around. Let us know how that goes for you.

Are we forgetting that we live in cities with cameras literally everywhere?

Where arguably the real creeps (cops and random security people) are actively watching you all the time.

I get it, if a person takes out his phone to do this it feels more intrusive (if it is or not is up for debate), but let's not kid ourselves here: we're already being recorded at almost all times (at least in most cities).

Why would he be forgetting that? He's allowed to be aginst both glasses and city-wide survelliance.

This knee-jerk attempt to annul judgment has been so heavily bred into online discussions, since roughly 2018.

Our current state of recording is not a counter argument to the concept, it's a stating of the facts.

I cannot tell you why, or if in this specific instance they are forgetting or not.

My point is more of a general one. The hypocrisy of the masses is real. Most only really care about the instances they can perceive and accept all other ones as long as they aren't inconvenient.

I'm not trying to annul any judgements, merely point out that this is, in my view, no different than the already existing surveillance we live under. At this point having a camera in your glasses is merely a more convenient way to take pictures.

And it's not like there aren't already glasses with cameras, for example. If a creep wants to creep, they will do it whether we want it or not. I simply don't understand how this product changes anything in relation to what already happens.

We are already surveilled and creeps already take pictures.

This lowers the barrier to take unwanted photos/videos significantly. Yes, surveillance cameras are everywhere but your everyday person does not have access to their feed (and the publicly accessible ones are not that common and usually very far away). This is different from possibly being recorded by anyone you pass by in high resolution, for their own personal use.

Also, today when a person takes a photo of you it's usually very apparent, hence most people hesitate just pointing a camera at you to shoot a picture. Tomorrow, when these become more and more popular, just a glance at someone will be enough and no one will hesitate.

Finally, this argument is basically: "oh well, we live in a crappy world already, so making it even more crappy is not a problem".

For me it comes down to ignoring valid use-cases because some people might misuse it (but can already do that without this product) without actually improving anything in the larger sense. It feels like a waste.

I understand that theoretically it lowers the bar, as you said. But in my view that's not as drastic as many are expecting. You still have an LED showing the person is taking a picture and they have to command it with their voice (or a button in the glass?) to take a picture. That's apparent enough for me.

That'll be equivalent to someone pointing a phone at you. Depending on the situation it would be even more apparent since holding your phone up is extremely common today.

I absolutely hate the state we are today, but I don't see how prohibiting/shaming this product will improve anything. I can definitely see the appeal of having one of these in trips, shows, etc. Those legitimate use-cases are being bundled up with the paranoia of strangers taking pictures, which already happens today, whether we want to believe it or not.

Imagine having concerts where people aren't fucking holding their phones up all the time again. Now that would be a sight for sore eyes.

Having said all that, maybe I'm simply numb at this point. I know we're in dystopia territory already so might as well have some nice trinkets with it.

> merely point out that this is, in my view, no different than the already existing surveillance we live under.

Just because a Bad Thing is already foisted on us to the point where it's impossible to avoid doesn't make it OK to make that situation even worse.

There's nothing illegal about these as long as you're not doing anything illegal. It's not illegal to take pictures of people in places where there's no expectation of privacy.

Are you commenting based on knowledge of Japan? To my knowledge they have laws against secret cameras in public places.

From a quick search it is complicated and varied by prefecture and type of place.

I live in Japan and see Chinese livestreamers walking around all the time. Stores are allowed to refuse their business, but it's not illegal to record others in public. Whether this counts as a hidden camera isn't up to me, but since it has a glowing LED indicating when it's recording I wouldn't think it would be a problem.

I'm curious about the quality of the footage — not the video itself, but in terms of stability and clear (re)watchability.

In the promo content, all videos and photos are in portrait mode. Is it really the case? Can you do landscape?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com