The New York Times reported that
Meta is considering adding face recognition technology to its smart glasses.
According to an internal Meta document,
the company may launch the product
“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 is a bad idea that Meta should abandon.
If adopted and released to the public,
it would violate the privacy rights of millions of people
and cost the company billions of dollars in legal battles
Meta’s conclusion that it can avoid scrutiny by releasing a privacy invasive product during a time of political crisis -- is craven and morally bankrupt.
It is also dead wrong.
Now more than ever, people have seen the real-world risk of invasive technology.
The public has recoiled at masked immigration agents roving cities with phones equipped with a face recognition app called "Mobile Fortify".
And Amazon Ring just experienced a huge backlash
when people realized that a feature marketed for finding lost dogs could one day be repurposed for mass biometric surveillance
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/seven-billion-reasons-facebook-abandon-its-face-recognition-plans