One of the biggest fantasies -- and fears -- in the science fiction-like realm of smart glasses is the idea of looking across a room, seeing someone, and instantly recognizing who they are. And remembering the last time you met them. And who knows what else.
The line between fantasy and reality, and fantasy and nightmare, often gets pushed and pulled to the limit in new tech. Meta, the biggest maker of smart glasses right now, is apparently well underway to introduce facial recognition into its glasses, according to a new report from the New York Times that mirrors reports The Information wrote last year.
Meta's facial recognition is not an if, it's a when.
While the company says the goal is for the tech to be used for assistive purposes, an internal company memo from 2025 cited in the Times story notes our current "dynamic political environment" as a good landscape to launch a controversial feature like facial recognition, claiming that "many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns."
That sentiment alone is deeply worrying and unsurprising for a company like Meta, which has been at the center of privacy scandals more than once. If facial recognition technology like this does come to smart glasses -- and I expect it will -- it'll need to be handled with extreme measures of control and responsibility. Sliding its debut into a chaotic political landscape, in hopes it'll go unnoticed -- or unregulated -- is the worst possible outcome.
When CNET asked Meta for comment, Meta's comms team responded: "We're building products that help millions of people connect and enrich their lives. While we frequently hear about the interest in this type of feature -- and some products already exist in the market -- we're still thinking through options and will take a thoughtful approach if and before we roll anything out."
Watch this: My Life With Meta Ray-Ban Displays: A Weird Wild Future 07:39
Is facial recognition on glasses inevitable?
Nothing in tech is "inevitable," but even so, I don't see a way that facial recognition on glasses won't happen to some degree sooner or later. While no smart glasses currently have facial recognition capabilities, it's totally possible to do this.
AI can already recognize faces in photos, and some of our phone apps have been using the technology to sort our photo libraries for years. The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, which has been widely criticized for its heavy-handed tactics, already uses it in software via Clearview AI and Mobile Fortify without the public's consent. Two students hacked a way to make Meta glasses do it in 2024.
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