Advocacy Groups Urge Meta to Cancel Facial Recognition Feature in Smart Glasses Over Privacy Risks

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 06:06:00 +0200

More than 70 civil liberties, privacy, labor, reproductive rights, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations have called on Meta to abandon plans to introduce facial recognition capabilities in its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses. The feature, reportedly known internally as “Name Tag,” would allow users to identify people in their field of view using Meta’s AI assistant, either by matching them with existing connections or potentially with any public Instagram or Meta profile. The coalition, which includes groups such as the ACLU, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and Fight for the Future, warns that the technology could be easily abused by stalkers, domestic abusers, scammers, and potentially government actors, enabling silent identification of individuals in public spaces without their consent or awareness. Critics argue that bystanders have no meaningful ability to opt out of being identified in real time, making such biometric surveillance fundamentally incompat