The Electronic Privacy Information Center sent letters to the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general on February 13, 2026, requesting a prompt investigation into Meta’s reported plans to add facial recognition to its Ray-Ban smart glasses – and the Electronic Frontier Foundation followed with a public warning that meaningful consent for such a system is structurally impossible.
EPIC described the planned feature, reportedly called “Name Tag”, as posing a grave risk to privacy, safety, and civil liberties that would cause widespread public harm. The organisation argued the technology would constitute an unfair and deceptive trade practice under Section 5 of the FTC Act, and would appear to violate Meta’s existing FTC consent decree, which prohibits the company from misrepresenting how it maintains user privacy. EPIC also raised concerns about the collection of personally identifiable information from children through the glasses and the Meta AI app without parental consent.
The EFF, in a post published around February 20, challenged the consent framework underlying any implementation of face recognition in consumer eyewear. Meta cannot possibly obtain consent from everyone – especially bystanders who are not Meta users, the foundation wrote, noting that people scanned by someone else’s glasses have no mechanism to opt out. The EFF characterised the capability as incompatible with any workable consent standard given that the glasses are designed to be indistinguishable from ordinary eyewear.
Meta’s smart glasses plans were first reported by the New York Times on February 13, based on internal documents. The company has been exploring facial recognition for its Ray-Ban line for some time, having initially pulled back from the feature over technical and ethical concerns. The stakes of the capability were illustrated when Harvard students demonstrated how existing Ray-Ban glasses could be combined with face search engines to identify strangers in real time.
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
