{"id":8149,"date":"2026-06-23T08:17:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T07:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/?p=8149"},"modified":"2026-06-23T08:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T07:26:13","slug":"banray-some-followup-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/banray-some-followup-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"Banray \u2013\u00a0some follow-up thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Pics from the Banray gallery<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The BanRay.eu<\/a> project has been up for a few weeks. (1)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made it to accompany a sticker design that you put up if you want to limit network wearables (such as Meta<\/a>s Rayban) on your premises. The ultimate goal is to raise awareness and combat the insatiable hunger for our data that FAANG+<\/a> has. Because Metas glasses break the GDPR (Excellent reporting by Naipanoi Lepapa<\/a>, Julia Lindblom<\/a>, Ahmed Abdigadir<\/a>) there’s political interest to act on it (2) and I want to be part of a discussion and a force for good.

Some folks are genuine freedom maximalists and don’t object to the surveillance \u2013 fair enough \u2013 so I figure that I’ll compile a list of my objections to this kind of tech:

A) The vacuuming up of surveillance data makes actual societal and individual harm. It’s not an abstract, there are numerous examples of this and is a given, especially when it’s done by FAANG.
B) There is very little political will to regulate profitable businesses. In the EU there is GDPR that is intended to give consumers right over how their data is used, which is the angle politicians are using to question Meta about the glasses right now, but if the tracking & storage happened within EU they wouldn’t mind as much.
C) Most people are not aware that this technology is a thing \u2013 at all<\/em>. Which means they can’t give informed consent. “Freedom to” has a corollary which is “freedom from”. Your freedoms only extend as far as they encroach on my freedoms.
D) In case of an actual accessibility function, there’s nothing stopping the tech to be regulated as a medical device. The social issues would be sorted out \u2013 guide dogs, wheelchairs, canes, personal assistants, it’s all assistive technology for which exemptions are made.

My main goal is this though:<\/strong> This technology is akin to people holding up a smartphone in your face, all the time, recording everything, for the benefit of datamining. I don’t want this to be socially acceptable by default, and attacking this format of the technology is a way to create a discussion around all aspect of that. (And it’s preempting stuff like Apples earphones with cameras<\/a>)

Bonus<\/strong>: Do you have access to Menlo park or know of someone who does? If you promise to put up some stickers at Meta HQ and send some pics to the gallery<\/a> I’ll send you a few for free!

(1) Thanks to all who helped me proofread the AI-translated text. If you catch a typo or want to suggest changes to a language, get in touch. (Or if there are news or updated that you feel are relevant)

(2) I’m not holding my breath for the political system to act on it’s own accord here, if for no other reason that they are moving so much slower than the technology. Also, if the surveillance was done within EU borders it would be a political non-issue. (and this is a global issue, not just a EU concern)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The BanRay.eu project has been up for a few weeks. (1) I made it to accompany a sticker design that you put up if you want to limit network wearables (such as Metas Rayban) on your premises. The ultimate goal is to raise awareness and combat the insatiable hunger for our data that FAANG+ has. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doodles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8149"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8288,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8149\/revisions\/8288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}