Ephemeral Perception: A Developer's Framework for Building Privacy-Safe Smart Glasses Apps

Ephemeral Perception is a design philosophy and reference architecture for ambient and session-based AI hardware and software. It dictates that raw visual data be converted into structured semantic information at the point of capture and discarded immediately and irreversibly, so that privacy is guaranteed by architecture rather than by policy. This white paper presents the three-layer framework (Perception, Abstraction, and Intelligence), contrasts it with the prevailing Capture-Store architecture, and offers concrete guidance for developers building on Meta's Device Access Toolkit, Google's Android XR, and the broader ambient computing ecosystem. Published as a reference architecture; attribution appreciated.