Would You Trust A Doctor Wearing Meta Glasses?

You know, we live in a fucked up society where privacy is a thing of the past. We all have seen how private conversations have started to get recorded, or how people have literally been called out for faking things because there’s literally hidden camera proof of them being shitbags.

The noticeable reality that you could be recorded at any point has harmed a lot of things in life — including the nightlife industry. Many club promoters have noticed that people no longer dance, often out of sheer fear of being seen doing something uncool on a reel.

Women have become more wary on the street after stories of edgy manosphere TikTokkers trying to get women to get angry or upset while wearing those Meta glasses. Let’s face it: some streamers are scary like that.

Note: I am not a lawyer. I am just going off the research that I got from legal groups and other similar works. If you need legal help or feel you have a HIPAA case, please seek out a lawyer.

Recently, a woman had a most unsettling situation: she discovered her healthcare provider was wearing Meta glasses during her checkup. According to one Redditor…well, I’ll leave this here.

That’s misleading as hell, don’t you think? Why didn’t the nurse say it wasn’t just an audio recorder? I think we all know why, right? This Redditor isn’t the only one who had this kind of disturbing situation happen at a doctor.

CyberNews recently wrote an article about a TikTok account called Taylorsdiary.mp4, where a woman voiced her concerns about a doctor consultation that occurred while the doctor was wearing Meta glasses.

It wasn’t even about not knowing whether the doctor was using the glasses to record, either. It’s just that seeing them knocks a certain level of fear into the person in question. The more she explains it, the worse it gets:

1. The consultation required her to remove her clothing. So, there’s a recording device around while she’s naked. Cool cool cool cool cool.

2. The doctor was male. Most women don’t feel okay with undressing around men, even if they are doctors. They definitely aren’t okay with having a camera guy nearby, so why are these glasses okay? Hmmm. Food for thought.

3. She wasn’t warned that it wasn’t going to be an audio recorder. Uh, that’s not okay at all. When someone says that they are going to be taking audio tapings, you expect an audio recorder or at least a phone

4. The doctor then said they wouldn’t record when she brought it up and said that it wasn’t recording “because the light would be on.” Uhhhh…there are ways around that. In fact, there’s a growing black market of sellers who now specialize in selling modded glasses that don’t light up. Moreover, Meta actually adds a glasses mode called “Incognito Mode,” so even a basic person could disable that light if they chose to.

5. The procedure was for a breast lift. So, uh, yeah. That’s a pretty big part of your privacy being exploited.

According to the article, she later reported the California plastic surgeon. As a plastic surgery fan, GOOD! GOOD ON HER! He needs to be reported for something that egregious.

I was actually thinking of being a medical scribe at my next job because I type faster than I can talk. I don’t know if that’s going to be an option, simply because doctors are starting to hire AI scribes at a breakneck pace.

I’ve also started to hear AI being used as a diagnostic tool — giving doctors suggestions on what an ailment could be. At face value, this could be good. Truth be told, I’m absent-minded, and I could totally see AI making a suggestion for a blind spot that I have or something I forgot.

However, this all makes me wonder why I’m paying so much for a guy who is using an AI doctor version of ChatGPT to make his diagnosis. Like, bro…why can’t we just skip you and go to ChatGPT in that case!?

Believe it or not, Meta glasses do make some sense in a medical field — to a point. The site says they can set alarms, take notes automatically, record reminders, and also display notifications. These are useful features if you’re a doctor.

Yet I’m going to point out something we keep glossing over while corporations glaze everything AI-related, okay?

AI is far from infallible.

Folks, have you ever used AI to transcribe a podcast you ran? I have, and I still use it for the automated captions in my work because it is generally okay — especially if you’re using a microphone.

Of course, even I see issues with the auto captions. I notice that AI can’t spell my name right. My thick-as-butter accent tends to come out at times, and it can cause the program to glitch out in the blink of an eye.

Next thing you know, the AI program is making it sound like I’m waiting in a chatroom when I’m actually waiting on line in a CVS. After all, New Yorkers tend to say we’re “waiting on line” when we are waiting in a line.

Obviously, my podcasts aren’t going to turn into life-or-death situations. If this same type of glitch happens in a medical setting, those AI scribes could make a huge, huge difference in how well a procedure goes.

Or worse, those scribes could end up causing the wrong procedure to be chosen.

As someone who works in the medical field and has (despite hating doctors with a fiery passion) linked up with a lot of healthcare workers as friends, I can tell you that I know that AI has caused problems in medical settings.

I know for a fact that AI has made serious mistakes in both transcription and diagnostic suggestions. How do I know? I’ve heard a friend of mine talk about how they caught it and brought it up to their higher-ups.

Had that mistake not gotten caught in the nick of time, that mistake could have caused someone to get hurt or even killed. That’s not okay. That’s a major liability.

People absolutely do make mistakes. I have forgotten where I placed a file before. I’ve lost office keys before. But at the very least, having a person around who can help oversee things can make a huge difference in safety.

And AI? We can’t hold AI accountable the way that we can hold people accountable. That’s doubly true when it comes to the court of law. So yeah, if Meta glasses are recording for AI transcription, that opens up a whole can of worms in terms of safety.

Ah yes, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). It’s considered to be the most wide-sweeping medical privacy law in America.

It’s gutted.

Yes, I was shocked to find this out while I researched this article.

HIPAA is a law that requires doctors to keep patients’ information safe and secure. Theoretically, HIPAA violations can be reported and the doctor who leaked things can get fired, fined, or even barred from practice.

In practice…it’s not so simple.

Enforcing HIPAA laws is harder to do than you think. Each state has its own wiretapping laws (single vs. dual-party consent), different state enforcement mandates, as well as major understaffing in the offices that are designed to help HIPAA enforcement.

The Office for Civil Rights, which is the office that handles HIPAA violations, is really overburdened. Many HIPAA cases end up falling through as a result of just being too much for the current system to handle.

Additionally, a HIPAA violation can be both a civil and criminal matter. If your doctor broke a law (say, revenge porn) you might not be able to just file a complaint wih the OCR. They may ask you to bump it off to the police, who might ask you to go back to the OCR.

If you choose to bring a matter to court, you will likely need a lawyer. This can be expensive and also time-consuming. Needless to say, the vagueness of the laws, paired with the heavy burden of proof and lack of support, makes it hard to really compile a case.

The biggest hurdle, of course, is the medical practice you’re trying to report. Hospitals and doctors’ offices realize that a HIPAA violation can tank them if it’s too big. That’s why they have entire branches devoted to HIPAA compliance, legal support teams, and other tools.

They know how high the stakes are. So yeah, they will do anything possible to erase HIPAA and AI-related mistakes from their records. And trust me — they will do anything to make sure that evidence is gone.

So, HIPAA had a lot of its teeth taken out by a number of factors, including the understaffing of the OCR and the increasing power that corporate hospitals hold over the field.

There was one major court case that could have helped people whose medical privacy was violated: Roe v. Wade. Contrary to popular belief, Roe wasn’t just about the right to abortion. It was also about the right to have your medical records stay private.

Gutting Roe meant that we no longer have the constitutional right to privacy in medical centers. That’s specifically the reason why abortion care was made legal: it was considered to be a private procedure to be agreed upon by the doctor and patient, no one else.

I got a good summary of why this is such a gut punch here: “…HIPAA protects records held by medical providers and insurers, but it does not prevent doctors or clinics from handing over data when served with a legal court order or criminal warrant.”

Imagine the following scenario: you’re in Texas. You’re a pregnant woman and your boyfriend drives you cross-state to get an abortion. You’re thankful. He’s so supportive!

While you’re doing the thing, he’s on his phone absentmindedly. He says he’s here, but he’s fiddling around on the phone. He says he’s wearing new Meta glasses or taking his phone with him to the appointment because he cares.

In reality, he’s recording you getting the abortion.

When you come home, he hits you. He demands to take all your money or to send over the evidence of the abortion to the state. You’re stuck choosing between being blackmailed into slavery for the rest of your life or going to jail for abortion-related crimes.

This is the reality of Meta glasses, modern technology, and privacy in America. Chilling? Oh my yes.

Do not consent to recording devices in your medical room. Do not consent to AI scribes, Meta glasses, or even cellphones out in the open. Know your rights and where they end.

And above all? Vote for people who actually want to bring accountability, privacy, and humanity back into healthcare. That’s all I have to say.