The Kodak Fiends Are Back

About this episode

In the late 1880s a new kind of pocket camera set off a panic: strangers photographed on beaches and promenades, sometimes with lenses disguised as buttons. That panic helped give us the legal idea of privacy. It never gave us a right not to be photographed. In autumn 2026, with hundreds of Dutch women and girls filmed in secret with Meta glasses, retailers pulling stock and Norway proposing a ban, the main protection for bystanders is a small LED. Hamburg's data regulator took it outside and tested it.

Wren and Theo follow the line from Abigail Roberson's face on twenty-five thousand flour posters to a light that dims, or stays dark, when the glasses' AI looks at the world. They also hear from the blind and low-vision people who call these glasses life-changing and fear being shut out by bans. Meta's explanation for the LED behaviour during AI queries was not in our research; we have asked Meta for comment.

Hosted by Wren and Theo, from real reporting. Supported by ShotBreak.

Sources

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