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Kenya has launched an investigation into Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses due to allegations that the devices are collecting users’ private data without consent, the digital rights group The Oversight Lab said Tuesday.
The probe follows a February report by Swedish media outlets, Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten, which claimed that images captured by the glasses, including intimate or sensitive material such as bank account information, were being reviewed in Nairobi.
Kenyan employees of a subcontracted company reportedly examined the images to help train the artificial intelligence powering the devices.
On March 6, The Oversight Lab asked Kenya’s Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) to investigate “the mass surveillance capabilities of Ray-Ban Meta glasses and their use for non-consensual recording of intimate images and videos.”
The group also asked, “The ODPC to investigate the unlawful processing of data to train Meta AI in Kenya.”
The organisation said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that the public body had confirmed it had launched an investigation.
The ODPC “has already commenced” investigations into the privacy issues, according to a letter the Oversight Lab received on March 11.
“The outcome and further developments will be communicated once the investigations are concluded,” the letter said.
When AFP contacted the ODPC, they did not respond right away.
The global market for smart glasses is expanding thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence. Meta is also facing similar privacy-related investigations in the United States and the United Kingdom, according to The Oversight Lab.
