Code Reveals Meta’s Smart Glasses Can Use ‘Faceprint’ Tracking, Raising Privacy Alarms
Meta has embedded facial recognition code into the software used by its smart glasses, according to an investigation by Wired, which was confirmed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Threat Lab on Thursday. Although the feature is not yet open to consumers, it is sitting on the Meta AI smartphone app.
Wired reports that Meta has been quietly adding facial recognition features since January with multiple updates to its Meta AI-compatible app — which has been downloaded more than 50 million times. The feature, under the internal name “NameTag,” will allow Meta’s smart glasses to biometrically identify anyone looking at it and notify the wearer with information about that person.
If this feature works, Wired reports, “it will convert the faces captured by the Meta glasses into unique biometric signatures, commonly known as faceprints, and check each one against facial prints stored on the user’s phone.”
In other words, NameTag will store biometric face data in an embedded database that can compare new faceprints with existing ones. The website is designed to live on the user’s phone but is configured to receive updates from Meta.
The EFF says the code was verified through consistent analysis and says Meta is moving forward with surveillance glasses that facilitate biometric tracking without people’s consent.
“Despite the billions of reasons not to do so, Meta appears to have created the potential to turn its customers into a pervasive surveillance machine,” EFF tech expert Cooper Quintin said in his article. “This is just one more reason to think twice before buying or using Meta safety glasses.”
At the beginning of this yearThe New York Times reported that Meta was working on these types of features but did not officially announce plans to roll them out.
At the time, CNET’s smart glasses and XR expert Scott Stein wrote of his concern that “Meta facial recognition is not an if, a time thing,” and that the technology would need to be “handled with extreme measures of control and responsibility.”
Not long after that, Stein spoke to Meta about it smart glasses privacy policies and came away “frustrated and unsure” due to the lack of clear guidelines and guard lines.
A new chapter in the Meta privacy scandal
In an email to CNET, Meta spokesman Ryan Daniels said the code is just a test of the technology and that no final decisions have been made to roll it out to consumers.
If we decide to release something, we will take a thoughtful approach and do so with transparency,” Daniels wrote. “One decision we can be clear about — we are not building a database of faces.”
The company’s communications team also sent responses to X, complaining that the Wired article pushed down Meta’s response.
This latest disclosure comes years after Meta automatically scanned faces in every photo uploaded to Facebook to power its Tag Suggestions tool. Following a legal setback, Meta agreed to pay $650 million to settle a lawsuit alleging violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which requires companies to obtain express consent before taking biometric data such as facial scans. In 2021, the tech giant shut down its facial recognition system globally and deleted the faceprint data of more than 1 billion people.
Face recognition in the race for smart glasses
Meta has partnered with companies like Ray-Ban and Oakley on its smart glasses, but faces competition. Google and Samsung newly introduced theirs takes the product category. Apple is said to be moving away from VR products like the Vision Pro to dislike of augmented reality glasses is in development, but is not expected to launch such a product until next year.
The flood of smart glasses is reviving the debate about privacy and security in these devices. Glasses can record video and audio, especially without the onlookers noticing — and thus without their consent — undermining anonymity in public spaces.
Digital rights experts have long worried about facial recognition technology because biometric data can be abused by governments to track opponents or used by companies to spy on consumers. It can also be used for public harassment or doxing, or leaked in a data breach.
When facial recognition software is enabled, it raises additional concerns about what sensitive data is stored and how it is used.
