It’s 2026, and “the number-one consumer technology trend seems to be devices that constantly listen to and record everything and everyone around us at all times — with or without consent.” That is the verdict of a feature in The Verge by Janus Rose, and the examples it lines up are hard to argue with.
What set it off
Earlier this month, according to The Verge, Apple announced that its new Apple Watches can continuously listen to spoken words they detect and summarise what is going on around you. Apple published a page of technical details to reassure people: one feature, Live Rewind, uses a rolling buffer that only transcribes the last 15 seconds of speech; another, Siri Recap, only gives “high-level summaries” of the day, and neither identifies individual speakers. An audible chime is meant to warn people nearby when the watch is transcribing.
Meta, meanwhile, launched a version of its smart glasses with no camera at all at Meta Connect 2026, alongside more camera-equipped models, after a summer in which its glasses were widely mocked and the company was sued, the piece says. Meta plans to offer 100 versions of its glasses by the end of the year.
The argument: warnings are not a “no”
The critics quoted by The Verge don’t think a blinking light or a chime solves anything. Chris Gilliard, an independent privacy researcher and author of the forthcoming book Luxury Surveillance, says these safeguards are “after the fact and require some action from the people who are already being recorded / listened to, rather than them being able to say ‘no’ before a recording begins.”
Opt-out models are not consent. Being given the option to opt out rather than choosing actively to opt in are very different.
Jenna Sherman, campaign director at UltraViolet, quoted in The Verge
Sherman’s point is that the default decides everything: when a product is built to record unless someone notices and objects, “the consumer is being forced to adapt to that decision.” And not everyone sees the light or hears the chime, “especially if you’re at a party or a concert.”
The Verge also records the pushback: an app that detects nearby smart glasses via Bluetooth became one of the top paid apps on Apple’s App Store, and restaurants, bars and nightclubs have started banning smart glasses to protect their patrons’ privacy.
What you can and can’t do about it
Let’s be honest about scope. No app on your Mac can stop a stranger’s watch or glasses from listening in a café; that’s a question for lawmakers, venues and the companies that build them. What you do control is the computer in front of you, and there the same principle applies: the difference between opt-in and opt-out is who decides by default.
On a Mac, most apps simply connect to the internet whenever they like. There’s no chime, no light and no question asked. That is the opt-out model, applied to your own machine: you find out what an app sent, if ever, after the fact.
An opt-in Mac, with FireAI
FireAI turns that default around. It’s a firewall for Mac built on the idea Sherman describes, choosing before, not objecting after:
- It asks before an app connects to the internet for the first time, and remembers your answer as a rule. Nothing is decided for you without a prompt or a rule you set.
- The world map shows where every connection goes, so an app talking to a server abroad isn’t invisible.
- Camera & mic shows which app turned your camera or microphone on, and what that app sent while it was on. See who uses your camera and microphone.
- Paranoid mode also blocks known telemetry and requires even Apple’s own system tools to be approved like any other app.
- FireAI’s own AI runs on your Mac. What it analyses to explain a connection never leaves the machine.
It won’t make the world around you quieter. It will make sure that, on your own Mac, the answer to “can this app send that?” is yours to give, before it happens.
Download FireAI and try it free for 17 days. FireAI is made by HisnLabs.