There can be no consent to be recorded where Google Glass is used.
Speaking at a Halsbury’s Law Exchange event in central London, chair Joshua Rozenberg said that Google Glass is better than a hidden camera, but asked if there was a personal risk with presumed consent or a significant change, Andrew Caldecott QC said that mere awareness cannot be consent, and the fact that you are being recorded cannot mean consent.
He said that there is an interesting issue with recording secretly, which may help in evidence gathering cases in the workplace.
Eduardo Ustaran, partner at Hogan Lovells, said: “The privacy implications are between the person recording the person being recorded. With Google Glass the real issue is what Google is doing with the data, as this is technology that is not recorded and stored in the glass, the data is stored in the cloud and that is accessible.
“That is how Google Glass is an example, but any technology is an example of an extra-dimension of what the provider is doing with the data, rather than the user.”
Jessica Bland, senior researcher in technology futures at Nesta, highlighted a new group of intermediary groups who have grown up in this change who were keen to secure their data, while Ustaran said that in the analogue world you could read a policy, but in the internet world, “who reads a privacy policy?”
He said: “It is a fridge, it is a jacket, it is a pair of trainers, it is glasses collecting information, how are all of these items going to present me with a privacy policy? Being transparent is one of the building blocks of data protection law and it is about wearable technology challenges it, and it is quite possible in the future that garments will have a label with details on what they share and what data is collected.”
Later, Caldecott said that it is a question of what you are consenting to, and what is the use of the data?
According to a report on smart glasses by Juniper Research, a combination of lengthy time-to-market and lack of a key consumer use case has resulted in low levels of shipments and adoption in the smart glasses space, and it estimated that shipments were unlikely to exceed ten million per annum until 2018.
The report also found that smart glasses continue to raise privacy and safety concerns from many consumers and Government bodies. It argued that these need to be addressed or assuaged before the devices become accepted, although prices and their status as supplementary devices mean that smart glasses will remain niche for the medium-term.
