Two Harvard students developed I-XRAY, a project that merges facial recognition technology with smart glasses, enabling real-time identification and doxing of individuals in public.
The system utilizes Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses and a custom application to retrieve personal information, such as home addresses and phone numbers, as users walk by people.
It operates by taking a photo, uploading it to the PimEyes facial recognition service, and accessing data from brokers to provide detailed personal information.
During demonstrations, I-XRAY successfully identified classmates and strangers, raising serious privacy concerns about its potential misuse.
While the creators aimed to highlight technology's risks, they acknowledged the dangers of such capabilities being exploited for harmful purposes.
Meta and PimEyes commented on the ethical implications of their technologies being used in this manner, emphasizing user responsibility and unexpected applications.