Two Harvard University students, AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, have developed a system called I-XRAY that connects Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses to a facial recognition tool, allowing them to identify strangers in public and access their personal information in real time.
In live demonstrations, they showcased the system’s alarming ability to retrieve details like phone numbers, addresses, and even social security numbers.
This technology poses serious risks, particularly for scammers, as it enables the user to gather information about individuals that would typically remain unknown to strangers.
The students employed this capability to approach targets, claiming familiarity based on the details they had acquired. For instance, they convinced a woman affiliated with the Cambridge Community Foundation that they had met her before, resulting in her engaging with them.
Nguyen explained that they used AI to identify people’s faces, and then scoured the internet for additional photos and data sources like online articles and voter registration databases to obtain personal information. They claimed to have successfully identified numerous people, including fellow students, without their knowledge, raising serious ethical and safety concerns.
