Terrifying new app shows how Meta smart glasses can help you identify a stranger on the street – and find their home address

This malware is every stalker’s dream.

Two Harvard students have created a new tool to highlight how easily Ray-Ban’s Meta smart glasses can be used to identify an individual and gain access to their personal information, including their home address.

AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, who are engineering students at the Ivy League school, posted a chilling video demonstration of their program, called I-XRAY on X, on Monday.

“Some guy can find a girl’s home address on the train and just follow her home,” Nguyen told 404 Media of the spec’s sinister potential.

Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses can record up to three minutes of video.

The I-XRAY program works by uploading images from the glasses to PimEyes, a facial recognition tool that uses AI to match a registered face to any image publicly available online.

I-XRAY then leverages another AI tool to scour public databases for personal details about the individual in the image, including name, address, phone number and even information about relatives.

This information is then sent to the I-XRAY mobile app

In the video posted on X, Nguyen and Ardayfio are seen identifying several classmates in real time and even approaching strangers in public using information gleaned from the technology to act like they know them.Â

However, Nguyen and Ardayfio are not releasing the program and say they created it only to “highlight [the] significant privacy concerns” related to Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.

“The purpose of building this tool is not for misuse and we are not releasing it,” the pair clarified in an additional document.

To mitigate potential exposure from bad actors using Meta smart glasses, Nguyen and Ardayfio have also released step-by-step instructions to help people remove themselves from the public databases they used to obtain personal information.

404 Media has reported that “both Meta and PimEyes appeared to downplay privacy risks” in the past.

Meta claims that “the same risks exist with photos” as with any recording taken by smart glasses.

Meanwhile, PimEyes says its technology “does not ‘identify’ people” but only links to photos where users can often find identifying information.

The Post has contacted Meta for comment.