State officials in several countries have joined forces to seek assurances from Google in light of the myriad of privacy fears related to Google Glass.
The EU Commission's Article 29 Working Party has aligned with privacy commissioners and data protection representatives in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Switzerland, Mexico and more over the matter.
All officials and groups have signed an open letter to Google CEO Larry Page requesting dialogue be opened to ensure proper protections for the public are in place.
The letter calls on Google to assist as a "leader in this area" and makes particular reference to the potential for unsuspecting passers-by to be photographed or filmed by the device without permission.
What about facial recognition?
"Google Glass has been the subject of many articles that have raised concerns about the obvious, and perhaps less obvious, privacy implications of a device that can be worn by an individual and used to film and record audio of other people," the letter read.
"Fears of ubiquitous surveillance of individuals by other individuals, whether through such recordings or through other applications currently being developed, have been raised. Questions about Google's collection of such data and what it means in terms of Google's revamped privacy policy have also started to appear."
The letter also makes reference to Google's future stance on facial recognition (the company will reject such apps for now), and asks what it intends to do with the data it collects from Glass users.
The commissioners have also requested permission to test the tech first hand, enabling them to raise any concerns directly with Google.
TechRadar asked Google for official comment and will update this story should a response be forthcoming.
Via The Verge
