Ray‑Ban glasses backlash

Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses are facing a fresh privacy backlash after reports that Meta is developing a facial-recognition feature called “Name Tag” for future eyewear. (techcrunch.com) TechCrunch reported on February 13 that the feature could let wearers identify people they meet and pull up information through Meta’s artificial intelligence assistant, citing a New York Times report based on internal documents and anonymous sources. The report said Meta had discussed releasing it as soon as 2026, though the plans could still change. (techcrunch.com) On April 13, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the national American Civil Liberties Union said 75 organizations signed an open letter urging Meta to “immediately halt and publicly disavow” facial-recognition plans for Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses. The groups said the technology could identify strangers in places such as protests, medical clinics, and businesses. (aclum.org) Facial recognition works by turning a face into a biometric template, then matching that template against a database, much like a phone checks a fingerprint. Put into glasses, that shifts identification from a fixed camera on a wall to something a person can wear while walking through a street, store, or subway car. (techcrunch.com) That matters because Meta’s current glasses are already built to capture what the wearer sees and hears. Meta said the Ray-Ban Meta line includes a 12-megapixel camera, five microphones, open-ear speakers, voice access to Meta artificial intelligence, and livestreaming to Facebook or Instagram, with prices starting at $299 at the 2023 launch. (about.fb.com) The installed base is no longer small. EssilorLuxottica, Meta’s eyewear partner and the owner of Ray-Ban, said on February 12, 2025 that Ray-Ban Meta glasses had sold 2 million units since launch. (essilorluxottica.com) Meta says the current product was designed with privacy controls, including a power switch, app settings, and a capture light that shows when photos or videos are being recorded. Meta also says the glasses will not capture if that light is covered, and it tells users to power off in places such as doctors’ offices, schools, toilets, changing rooms, and places of worship. (meta.com) Critics say those safeguards do not answer the core complaint. The April 13 coalition letter said the risk is not just recording, but real-time identification of people who never agreed to be scanned, including women, immigrants, children, public workers, and political demonstrators. (aclum.org) Meta has publicly promoted privacy settings for today’s glasses, but the reported “Name Tag” feature has not been announced as a shipping product on Meta’s official smart-glasses pages or release notes reviewed this week. That leaves the fight centered on whether a product that can already record first-person video should ever also be able to tell wearers who a stranger is. (meta.com)