Meta Disaster: the company removes facial recognition from smart glasses after controversy

Meta has eliminated the facial recognition code from its smart glasses. Within a day, the company removed components dedicated to NameTag, a facial recognition system that had never been publicly activated but was already integrated into the software distributed to users, from the Meta AI app, used as companion software for its smart glasses.

The discovery emerged from an analysis by WIRED, which identified libraries explicitly dedicated to face recognition within the app. According to the investigation, these components were present in an app installed on over 50 million smartphones and were part of an already well-developed infrastructure.

What has been removed and what questions remain

NameTag was designed to capture faces through the smart glasses, convert them into biometric faceprints, and compare them with a database stored locally on the device. The code analysis also highlighted another particularly sensitive aspect: faces that the system could not identify were cropped, indexed, and stored locally for subsequent processing.

The most recent app update removed almost every trace of the functionality. The facial recognition software, the code responsible for processing NameTag, the notification alerting the identification of a person, and even the directory intended to store cropped images and biometric signatures generated by the system have all disappeared.

This move was particularly significant because just a few days earlier, Meta had claimed that the function did not exist as a real service. Andy Stone, the company’s communications vice president, described the project as a mere technical exploration, stating that no definitive decision had been made regarding its potential use. Andrew Bosworth, Meta's CTO, also contested the investigation's findings.

However, the fact remains that a large part of the infrastructure was already embedded in the application. Meta has not responded to numerous questions regarding the operation of the system, the possible existence of biometric profile databases, the data retention times for collected data, and any potential transfer of such information to corporate servers. The company has not clarified whether users would have the option to explicitly opt-in or opt-out of the function. It has also failed to provide explanations regarding the criticisms raised by privacy advocacy groups, which highlighted the risk of misuse, including the identification of strangers in public places.

In the code of the latest version, only a few residual fragments remain, including some internal debug entries and inactive links. Elements that suggest the project was indeed developed and integrated, at least in part, before its sudden removal.