Meta Plans Facial Recognition for Smart Glasses This Year

Meta is considering facial recognition for its smart glasses

Meta is planning to add facial recognition technology to its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses, according to a New York Times report. The internal feature, called "Name Tag," would let users identify people and get information about them through Meta's AI. It could roll out as early as this year.

Adding the feature is not finalized. An internal document cited by The Times shows the company is weighing the "safety and privacy risks" of introducing facial recognition. Meta is also discussing how to navigate the expected controversy.

Another document suggests Meta is deliberately timing a potential rollout to minimize scrutiny. "We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns," the document from Meta’s Reality Labs reads.

Meta's complicated history with the tech

This is not Meta's first foray into facial recognition. The company debated adding it to the first-generation Ray-Ban smart glasses in 2021 but decided against it due to privacy concerns. Its Facebook platform also had a face-tagging feature from 2010 until it was shut down in 2021.

Meta cited "many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society" when it ended the Facebook feature. The potential for new abuse is significant, as smart glasses could enable instant doxxing by linking a face to public information like social profiles, addresses, or phone numbers.

Meta says it is not planning a universal facial recognition tool. In a statement, the company said it is considering options where the glasses might only identify:

• People a user knows based on a connection on a Meta platform.
• People who have a public account on a Meta site like Instagram.

"While we frequently hear about the interest in this type of feature—and some products already exist in the market—we’re still thinking through options and will take a thoughtful approach if and before we roll anything out," Meta said.

The potential benefits for accessibility

Despite the privacy risks, the technology has clear benefits for people with vision impairments. According to the report, Meta originally planned to introduce Name Tag to attendees of a conference for the blind before a public release, though that plan was later scrapped.

Mike Buckley, CEO of the accessibility technology company Be My Eyes, has been in discussions with Meta about the glasses for over a year. “It is so important and powerful for this group of humans,” Buckley told The Times.

The report highlights the central tension Meta faces: balancing a powerful assistive tool against the profound privacy invasion of wearable facial recognition. The company's internal documents show it is acutely aware of the backlash it will likely face.