Meta Plans to Add Facial Recognition to Ray-Ban Smart Glasses, Internal Memo Reveals

Meta is planning to add facial recognition technology to its Ray-Ban smart glasses as soon as this year, according to a report by The New York Times based on internal documents and sources close to the project. The feature, internally called "Name Tag," would let wearers identify people and retrieve information about them through Meta's AI assistant.

The Internal Memo

Perhaps the most striking revelation is Meta's awareness of the feature's controversial nature — and its calculated approach to timing the release. An internal document from May 2025, viewed by The New York Times, explicitly acknowledged the "safety and privacy risks" involved.

The memo from Meta's Reality Labs division stated: "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."

This candid admission that Meta is timing a privacy-sensitive feature release to coincide with political distraction has drawn sharp criticism from privacy advocates and civil liberties organizations.

What Name Tag Would Do

The facial recognition feature would work through Meta's AI assistant built into the smart glasses. Meta is exploring several approaches for who can be recognized:

• Known connections: People the wearer is connected to on Meta platforms like Facebook or Instagram
• Public accounts: People with public profiles on Meta platforms, even if the wearer doesn't know them personally

The feature would not function as a universal facial recognition tool that could identify anyone on the street, according to sources familiar with the plans. However, the distinction between recognizing "public Instagram accounts" and "anyone on the street" may be thinner than Meta suggests, given Instagram's massive user base.

A $2 Billion History of Privacy Violations

Meta's push into facial recognition comes with significant baggage. The company has paid over $2 billion to settle lawsuits in Illinois and Texas that accused it of collecting facial data without permission for a now-shuttered Facebook feature that automatically tagged people in photos. In 2019, Facebook paid an additional $5 billion to the Federal Trade Commission over privacy violations including its facial recognition software.

In 2021, Facebook shut down its facial recognition system entirely, saying it wanted to find "the right balance" for a technology that raises privacy and legal concerns. Now, just five years later, Meta wants to bring it back — this time on wearable cameras that people carry everywhere.

7 Million Glasses and Growing

Meta's smart glasses have become an unexpected commercial success. EssilorLuxottica, which partners with Meta to manufacture the Ray-Ban smart glasses, reported selling more than 7 million pairs last year. Mark Zuckerberg sees facial recognition as a way to differentiate Meta's glasses from upcoming competitors like OpenAI's rumored wearable AI devices.

"Super Sensing" Glasses: Always-On Cameras

Beyond Name Tag, Meta is also developing what it internally calls "super sensing" glasses — devices that would continuously run cameras and sensors to keep a record of the wearer's day, similar to how AI note-takers summarize video call meetings.

Facial recognition would be a key feature for super sensing glasses, enabling them to, for example, remind wearers of tasks when they see a colleague. Zuckerberg has questioned whether the glasses should keep their LED indicator light on during super sensing mode or use a different signal to show people they're being recorded.

Pushing FTC Boundaries

As part of its 2019 FTC settlement, Meta agreed to review every new or modified product for potential privacy risks. In January 2025, the company relaxed that review process, giving privacy teams less influence over product releases and imposing time limits on risk reviews.

When employees questioned whether the changes would comply with the FTC settlement, a director of risk review in Reality Labs told them she believed the changes would "push the bounds" of Meta's agreement with the FTC, adding: "Mark wants to push on it a little bit."

The combination of facial recognition on wearable cameras, always-on recording capabilities, and a deliberately weakened privacy review process raises profound questions about the future of personal privacy in public spaces — and whether the regulatory framework can keep pace with a company that has already paid billions for privacy violations and appears eager to push boundaries again.