Do wearable computers pose a threat to privacy? That was the question du jour at the International Symposium on Wearable Computers on Tuesday, where experts debated the likelihood of wearable-computing enthusiasts becoming a mobile army of surveillance and broadcast agents.

"The express aim of the wearable computer is to collect images, live video, facts about one's own body," said Anita Allen, a University of Pennsylvania law professor who sat on a panel considering the issue. If the wearables concept takes off, she said, early adopters might be decking themselves out in clothes that contain or conceal miniscule computers, cameras, microphones &£45;- even Web servers.

"[Wearable owners want to] record what [someone] is saying and transmit what they're saying across great distances and without their consent," she said.  Allen and other panelists, mostly researchers involved in developing the wearable computer, wrestled with the privacy implications of the tiny computers that are only now beginning to leave the labs and hit the consumer radar.

Since developers of the new technology haven't addressed this hot-button issue at all, Tuesday's panel was intended to get the dialog going. Panel members quickly warmed to their task. "We have one chance &£45;- at the beginning &£45;- to make sure there are explicit safeguards as to how people might use the technology," said Thad Starner, cofounder of the Wearable Computing Project at MIT's Media Lab.

Allen identified specific threats posed by some wearable computing applications, like in-the-field video beamed anywhere and nearly invisible cameras and keyboards that let their wearers silently collect information. But the device could easily be turned on its user, Allen said. A wearable-computer user is always connected and always being monitored in some way. One obvious example is that the system tracks and broadcasts the user's geographical location. Imagine that in the hands of creditors.

http://iswc.gatech.edu/