5,000 people installed an app that detects nearby Meta glasses
Newsroom / Security and Privacy desk
Smart glasses changed the privacy question from whether a camera is present to whether the one in the room is pointed at you. Consumer hardware still has no answer, so someone built a workaround.
How the detection works
Pawel Szydlowski, a 30-year-old Polish software developer, bought several models of smart glasses and studied the Bluetooth signals each one broadcasts. The result is an app he calls Zuckoff, now listed for both iPhone and Android. It compares pieces of information a device advertises, including its unique identifier and its manufacturer identifier, against the fingerprints he catalogued. “If the unique identifier matches, and also if the manufacturer identifier matches, then we have like an ultimate combo there,” he told Business Insider. Some devices make it easier still by broadcasting Bluetooth services named Meta or Ray Bans.
The app has gathered about 5,000 users since it launched on Apple’s App Store a month ago, and its site now lists an Android build as well. A paid tier, Zuckoff Pro, keeps it running in the background and sends a notification when something turns up nearby.
What it cannot do
The limits are stated plainly by the developer and on the app’s own site. Zuckoff can tell you a compatible pair of glasses is close and roughly how close. It cannot tell you who is wearing them, and it cannot confirm that recording is happening. Its own wording is that quiet is not proof that nobody is recording, and a detection is not proof that anyone is. It also does nothing for people who have not installed it, which is almost everyone in any given room. Its own site describes it more broadly as a camera glasses detector, listing Snap Spectacles and Oakley Meta alongside Ray-Ban Meta.
Szydlowski’s stated reason is narrower than a solution. “We as a society have the right to at least know that someone is recording,” he told the publication.
That framing is the useful part. A Bluetooth scanner built by one developer is a response to a design decision, not a fix for it. Whether the recording indicator is noticeable is contested. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth told Business Insider that “we designed this camera to be noticed by the people around you,” while the same reporting notes Meta bricked thousands of glasses over LED tampering, and The Next Web says a $2 sticker defeats the light. Either way, the burden of noticing sits with the person being recorded. Detection apps invert that only for the minority who go looking.
Sources
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