Voyeur alert over Google specs in loos

Some attendees forgot to remove their Google Glass during calls of nature at a Google developers conference in San Francisco.

The device has already raised privacy fears because it can record video far less conspicuously than a handheld device and could make it difficult for people to know when they are on camera.

Drew Olanoff, reviewing Glass for the Techcrunch website, said: “We heard about people wearing Glass in the bathroom, as if to remind us that not everyone is ready to feed into the hype.”

Alex Roth, a technology reviewer for Techradar, said: “Google is actively trying to reduce the voyeur factor by making it rather obvious when Glass is engaged. The screen emits a glow when in use, and spoken commands like ‘take a picture’ make sure those around you are clued in to what you’re doing.”

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt dismissed concerns about privacy during a talk at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in April, saying: “Criticisms are inevitably from people who are afraid of change or who have not figured out that there will be an adaptation of society to it.”

Google Glass is supposed to perform many of the same tasks as smartphones, except the glasses respond to voice commands instead of fingers touching a display screen.

The device has yet to go on open sale but is being tested by a selected group of users in the US. The finished product is expected to cost around £1,000.