Meta Deletes Hidden Facial Recognition Code From Ray-Ban Glasses App After Exposure
The NameTag system scanned faces on 50 million devices before WIRED's investigation prompted a quiet removal.
Meta embedded facial recognition code in its Ray-Ban smart glasses companion app on more than 50 million phones, then removed it the day after WIRED exposed the feature on June 4, 2026.
The system, internally called NameTag, had been integrated into the Meta AI app as early as January 2026. It deployed three AI models to detect faces, crop them, and encode them into biometric signatures stored locally on users' devices. The app also cropped, indexed, and stored images of unrecognized faces in a folder marked "pending" for future processing.
Meta pulled the NameTag code on June 5, 2026.
Meta's initial response denied the feature entirely. "The feature does not exist," said Andy Stone, Meta's vice president of communications. Stone later described NameTag as "purely exploratory." CTO Andrew Bosworth called WIRED's reporting "incredibly misleading" and "absolutely dishonest."
The incident follows a February 2026 New York Times report citing internal Meta documents stating the company would "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."
Privacy advocates say the episode demonstrates why stronger enforcement mechanisms are needed. "Meta's sneaky tactics in slipping the face-recognition code into its smart glasses show exactly why data privacy bills need the teeth of strong enforcement," said Kade Crockford, director of the technology for liberty programme at the ACLU of Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a consumer privacy bill in June 2026 that includes a private right of action, allowing individuals to sue companies for privacy violations.
The NameTag system converted faces into unique biometric signatures and compared them against a local database stored on the user's device. Unlike cloud-based facial recognition, faceprints and uncropped images remained on individual phones rather than Meta servers.
This discovery marks the latest privacy controversy surrounding Meta's smart glasses initiative. The company has faced increasing regulatory pressure in both the EU and US over data collection practices tied to its wearable devices.
Meta did not disclose how many users may have had their faces scanned and stored by the NameTag system before its removal. The company has not announced plans for independent auditing of deleted biometric data or notification to affected users.