Horrified activists urge Meta to cancel creepy facial rec tech in Ray-Ban AI glasses

Meta’s AI-powered Ray-Ban glasses are already quite problematic: it’s creepy when someone can film you so easily in public without your knowledge or consent. Now, with the company planning to inject facial recognition technology into the mix, outrage is rising.

A coalition of over 70 civil liberties, domestic violence, LGBTQ+, labor, and immigrant advocacy organizations has signed a petition and called on Meta to cancel the whole new feature, internally dubbed “Name Tag,” altogether.

The facial recognition feature would allow Meta Ray-Ban wearers to identify people they’re looking at (or taking photos or videos of) and receive information about them with the help of an AI assistant.

Internal memo: the timing is right

“People should be able to move through their daily lives without fear that stalkers, scammers, abusers, federal agents, and activists across the political spectrum are silently and invisibly verifying their identities and potentially matching their names to a wealth of readily available data about their habits, hobbies, relationships, health, and behaviors,” the coalition of experts and activists says in an open letter.

Introducing facial recognition technology into consumer products such as eyewear “is a red line society must not cross,” the letter states.

Meta, though, probably couldn’t care less about society. According to The New York Times, the daily that first reported on the upcoming feature in February, the tech firm said in an internal memo that the political tumult in the US was “good timing” for the release of Name Tag.

“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,” reads the document from Meta’s Reality Labs.

Well, this didn’t work, clearly, as the aforementioned groups did find time to create and co-sign a scathing petition.

The coalition even specifically singles out Meta for kissing the multiple backsides in President Donald Trump’s administration.

Meta already used a facial recognition system for tagging people in photos on Facebook but shut it down in 2021, citing “growing societal concerns.”

“Taking advantage of rising authoritarianism and this federal administration’s disregard for the rule of law to roll out a product that will harm vulnerable people while further imperiling our democracy is vile behavior, unbecoming of a company with such a prominent role in shaping our children, our society, and our future,” the coalition says in the letter.

Ironically, Meta already used a facial recognition system for tagging people in photos on Facebook but shut it down in 2021, citing “growing societal concerns.” Now, the company is trying again.

“Terrifying safety crisis”

The risks of installing facial recognition in Meta’s Ray-Bans, called by many “pervert glasses,” are huge, experts say.

As early as March, a joint investigation by two Swedish newspapers found that contractors in Kenya were watching personal videos recorded by Ray-Ban users.

August 2025 reporting from The Washington Post describes teenage girls as already frightened by classmates wearing Meta glasses in school, and another report from CNN also revealed that Meta glasses have been used to covertly record and upload videos of women without their consent.

“Adding instant identification via facial recognition creates a genuine and terrifying safety crisis,” activists say.

More generally, perpetrators could use “Name Tag” to identify and stalk victims, and abusers could use it to identify, track, and harm children.

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According to activists, corporate dissidents could use this technology to identify and harass leadership at major pharmaceutical, insurance, oil, and other companies as they go about their daily lives.

Politicians and their staff would forfeit any ability to move through the country in relative anonymity.

“Abortion or IVF foes could stake out clinics and identify everyone coming and going,” the open letter goes on.

“Stalkers and scammers using the tech could conceivably find out, quickly and in complete stealth, not just the name of the person sitting next to them on the subway – but their address, marital status, social media profiles, workplace, income, hobbies, health information, and habits. That’s frightening to contemplate.”

Meta’s tech has already been used to demonstrate how easy it would be to invade people's privacy in public places.

In 2024, Harvard students paired existing Ray-Ban glasses with a commercial facial recognition tool to successfully identify strangers in the Boston subway in real time.

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