AI Wearable Surveillance Spurs New Countermeasures Arms Race

The article examines the growing tension between AI-powered wearable recording devices and emerging counter-surveillance technologies. In March 2025, startup Deveillance, founded by Aida Baradari, announced Spectre I, a hockey-puck-shaped jammer designed to block unauthorized recording. This follows a surge in AI-enabled wearables like pins, pendants, and glasses that can silently record conversations. Apple is rumored to be developing an AI pin or pendant. The piece traces the history of surveillance countermeasures from WWII radar chaff to modern ultrasonic jammers. Researchers like Yuxin Chen (University of Chicago) have developed bracelet-mounted ultrasonic transducers. However, AI wearables use speech-recovery algorithms, advanced by DeLiang Wang (Ohio State University) and Microsoft's Deep Noise Suppression Challenge, to defeat jammers. Alternative approaches include audio babble tapes used by defense attorneys and MicFrozen, a wearable jammer from Ming Gao (Nanjing University) that generates anti-speech. Finn Brunton (UC Davis) suggests supplying junk data, as seen in Adam Harvey's anti-facial-recognition makeup and the TrackMeNot browser plug-in. Woodrow Hartzog (Boston University) notes the imbalance between well-funded tech corporations and small countermeasure developers. The article concludes with the FBI's Anom encrypted-phone sting, illustrating the ongoing cat-and-mouse dynamic.