A newly released app called Zuckoff is giving people a way to tell when they may be close to someone wearing Meta’s AI-powered smart glasses, a product that has faced growing privacy criticism over fears that wearers can film others without permission.
Its creator, programmer Pawel Szydlowski, said he was motivated by reports of people using the glasses to secretly record women or bother strangers in public. The app’s cheeky name is also a not-so-subtle jab — one that becomes clearer when spoken aloud with a pause between the syllables.
Zuckoff works by identifying Bluetooth signals emitted by smart glasses and can also provide an estimate of how far away the device is. Since launching on Apple’s App Store last month, it has attracted roughly 5,000 users, Business Insider reported.
“There’s a need for such an application,” the 30-year-old Polish developer told the outlet. Szydlowski also said European Union regulators have reached out to him seeking additional details about how the privacy-focused app works.
“We as a society have the right to at least know that someone is recording,” Szydlowski said.
Zuckoff’s main scanning screen depicts the likely proximity of nearby smart glasses. A Zuckoff Pro version allows users to get notified of nearby recording smart glasses when the app isn’t open, according to Business Insider.
Meta has been scrambling to address criticism about the device, which has been widely described as “perv glasses.”
Privacy advocates have panned the product, and the headware has even been banned at some locations. Those include exclusive New York nightclub Basement, which said it would permanently ban anyone who brought them into the venue.
Recent weeks have seen Meta launching a PR blitz saying the product’s intended use is not to secretly record strangers.
“We designed this camera to be noticed by the people around you,” Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth insisted in a recent Instagram video.
Earlier this month, the tech giant disabled thousands of glasses it found had been tampered with to keep a small light off that indicates the device is recording.
In July, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said the social media site, which is owned by Meta, was booting accounts that were using the glasses to post videos featuring harassment.
The social media platform is still awash in such videos, including clips of AI glasses wearers pretending to steal money from strangers’ bank accounts and recording their frenzied reactions.
Szydlowski said he built the app by obtaining various models of smart glasses to study the Bluetooth signals they broadcast. That allowed him to determine their Bluetooth “fingerprint” and unique identifiers that indicate the glasses are in use. Some devices’ Bluetooth services are labeled “Meta” or “Ray Bans,” Szydlowski said.
“If the unique identifier matches, and also if the manufacturer identifier matches, then we have like an ultimate combo there,” he told Business Insider.
Szydlowski said he was particularly irked by how subjects of the videos rarely had their faces blurred and how they were sometimes being doxxed by people in the comments.
“With this type of content, I’ve seen a lot of emotions in me,” he observed.
Meta released smart glasses with video recording capability last fall, with celebrities like Kylie Jenner jumping on board to promote them – generating swift backlash from people describing the devices as “dystopian.”
The Post has sought comment from Meta.