Meta Has Quietly Added Its Smart Glasses’ Facial Recognition Code to Millions of Phones

Meta is silent included face recognition technology for him smart glasses to be an app downloaded to millions of phones, according to WIRED’s review of the company’s apps.

Smart code added to Meta’s AI software in several updates this year shows that this feature, called a “NameTag,” identifies it. people captured by the lens camera and, when activated, alerts the wearer when it detects another.

The presence of NameTag in the live Meta AI app suggests that Meta has begun sending facial recognition codes to users’ phones while publicly describing them as something the company is “still considering.” In April, Meta said that if it were to use facial recognition, it wouldn’t do it without “a lot of thought.” But WIRED found that as early as January, major hardware devices were included in apps distributed to millions of people.

Although not possible, NameTag is part of Meta AI software that has been downloaded more than 50 million times and is essential to use its smart features, including Ray-Ban and Oakley brands. When activated, it will convert faces captured by Meta’s glasses into unique biometric signatures, also known as faceprints, and check each against a profile stored on the user’s phone – a database configured to receive updates from Meta. Recognized faces will trigger notifications, while everything else is clipped, saved, and stored in a folder labeled “pending.”

NameTag will resurrect a type of technology that Meta said had sunset in 2021, when the company announced it would delete more than a billion Facebook users’ records after years of controversy over its photo-sharing system. Meta eventually paid $650 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Illinois users and, in 2024, agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas over charges it illegally collected from users.

His new effort comes amid growing criticism of consumer apps, which privacy advocates argue have given everyone from stalkers to immigration agents easy access to dangerous technology. Meta internals published by The New York Times in February he revealed that the company planned to release the feature at a time of “power politics,” when Meta believed that his main opponents would be busy.

Three types of AI-powered NameTag have already been deployed from Meta’s servers and are now live on its customers’ phones, according to WIRED’s analysis, which was also conducted by outside experts. One type recognizes the face, the other plants it, and the third puts it into biometric data.

The current user interface, shows how the feature can work. The May version of the app rebrands the user interface as “Connections,” inviting them to “remember people you’ve met.” It is not yet clear whose faces will be included in the system’s identification database, how the profile is created, or how many people will be identified through it.

WIRED shared its findings with two outside security researchers who analyzed the software separately and released key parts of the investigation: Cooper Quintin, a security researcher and senior analyst at the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Threat Lab, and an independent security and privacy researcher who goes by the name Buchodi and has spent more than a decade in the field of technology engineering.

“The show hasn’t been seen by consumers yet but it looks like it’s almost over,” says Quintin. “Despite a billion reasons not to, Meta seems to have turned their customers into viewing machines.”