In fact, this sentiment reportedly stems from an internal memo leaked from inside Meta.
“We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many of the civil society groups we would expect to attack us will have their resources focused on other concerns,” the New York Times said Meta is telling employees about its plan to add facial recognition capabilities to glasses like the Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta HTSN smart glasses and the Meta Ray-Ban Display AR glasses. Meta has reportedly been looking for ways to incorporate facial recognition into its glasses for the past year, despite knowing there were “security and privacy risks” associated with the technology.
Should Meta ever launch this feature, it’s unclear whether the company will make facial recognition a featured feature of a new pair of smart glasses or whether it will add them to existing pairs. In an email statement sent to Gizmodo, a Meta spokesperson said, “We’re building products that help millions of people connect and enrich their lives. While we often hear about interest in this type of feature – and some products are already on the market – we’re still considering options and will take a thoughtful approach before introducing anything.”
Less about accessibility and more about AI
Apparently, this technological capability could be used to help people who have difficulty seeing or who suffer from prosopagnosia (literally facial blindness) recognize mugs of friends or family. In fact, it appears that Meta wants this feature for more than accessibility purposes. The Times claims Meta is working on “super sensing” capabilities for its glasses. Essentially, this will let the device’s camera and microphone capture information whenever you’re wearing them, not just when you press record. It will feed all this data to an AI assistant to help with everyday tasks, like when you forget where you parked.
Putting facial recognition aside for a minute, always-on recording glasses pose far broader ethical dilemmas than pre-existing facial cameras. The Ray-Ban Meta Glasses can be used to discreetly capture video – just like in the “Glasshole” days. The Meta’s glasses usually stay lit while recording, but will a new pair of glasses keep the light blinking all the time while recording? Even if that happens, a single piece of tape can turn anyone into a one-man surveillance team.
A new opportunity for nationwide surveillance
CEO Mark Zuckerberg is working hard to adjust to the Trump administration. The company recently won a federal antitrust case over its acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. He knows that to continue playing the game, he will have to accept whatever the White House asks of him. It’s not a stretch to believe that the company could work with federal authorities to turn over data collected by users of its smart glasses, if it isn’t already doing so.
There’s a good reason why people might be worried about bringing facial recognition technology to the masses. In 2024, two Harvard students hack Ray-Ban Meta glasses to make them compatible with a freeware facial recognition tool. The glasses can trace people’s phone numbers, home addresses and more publicly available information online to get relevant information.
This is also not the first time that Meta is working on facial recognition. It first enabled the technology on Facebook in 2010 to make it easier to tag friends in photos. Users had no choice in the matter until 2019, when Facebook finally made it an option. Meta pushed Facebook’s facial recognition technology into a shallow grave in 2021.
Facial recognition technology has become so strong that there is almost no way to hide your biometric data from surveillance systems. Gizmodo spoke to several experts in the field of biometrics, and they all say that you can’t just put on some makeup and a mask and expect to be unrecognizable. It is already almost impossible to avoid cameras in our airports or even on public roads. If everyone is walking around with a camera that is constantly recording, there will be no place left to hide.
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