In a recent USA Today article, Thompson Coburn associate Drew Moore discussed how Illinois law addresses the use of Meta’s AI glasses in public, including whether protections exist for residents and potential penalties for users.
Drew said that Illinois would likely be “proactive in prohibiting unconsented recordings.” He added that the state has many laws and statutes that can apply to privacy protection for residents.
Many of these privacy protections have been encoded in the state’s constitution since 1970, making the state decently “privacy-forward … with enough political will to keep modernizing to protect Illinois citizens,” according to Drew.
The use of Meta glasses could theoretically be restricted from a variety of legal angles, said Drew. These include statutory protections (including consent laws), tort laws and the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, also called “BIPA.”
To start, Drew said, the right to consent is an integral part of Illinois’ legal framework, making it a “real possibility” the state would enforce its consent laws.
“If you consider Meta AI’s video editing tools, the questions quickly multiply,” Drew said. “You could potentially sue the person who used the glasses to capture a person’s image or conversation, sue another person or company who hacked into an archival system to appropriate the image or audio files, then sue another person or company who altered that audio-visual data material to change its appearance or context.” He said one caveat is that the person involved may not discover the violations in order to bring a suit in the first place.
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