Facebook Opens Wider Window to Your World with Portal

What do you do if you’re less than half a year removed from a highly public scandal where it was revealed that millions of your users had their personal data harvested without their consent, and many people still question the privacy policies of your company? If you’re Facebook, you release a new product that can take video inside your home and track your every move.

With the marketing tagline “If you can’t be there, feel there.”, Facebook Portal is a smart camera designed to make you feel like you’re in the same room with people. The camera automatically tracks your image and voice as you move around, and even widens the pictures as more people enter the frame. Along with connecting with other people who have Portals, you can also use the device to “call” other friends on their smartphones or tablets using Facebook Messenger.

While this technology is cool, it could be a tricky sell for Facebook coming off the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Seemingly aware of this, Facebook has made it a point of underlining the privacy and security protections of the device in the marketing. Will that be enough for people to open their homes to Facebook? Or will the majority decide to keep this Portal closed?