Meta Eyes Controversial Facial Recognition For Smart Glasses 02/16/2026

As more social-media platforms begin
implementing facial recognition for age checks and
other purposes, Meta is reportedly planning to integrate the controversial biometric technology into its EssilorLuxottica smart glasses before the end of the year, according to The New York Times. 

The report, which relays information from four unnamed Meta
employees, states that the facial-recognition feature — deemed “Name Tag” — will allow smart-glasses owners to identify people using Meta’s hands-free AI assistant Meta
AI.

It has not been determined whether Meta’s smart glasses products will deliver information when the user already knows someone, or whether users
will be able to identify strangers as well.

In either case, the facial-recognition technology would likely base its findings on private and/or public Instagram and Facebook
accounts.

However, “the feature would not give people the ability to look up anyone they encountered as a universal facial recognition tool,” the report reads. 

In the past few years, facial-recognition technology has been at the center of multiple lawsuits, especially in Big Tech.

In May,
for example, Google paid $1.375 billion to settle
privacy claims in Texas, including charges that the company captured people’s faceprints and voiceprints in violation of the state’s biometric privacy law.

More recently, U.S. senators have called
for the country’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to cease the use of a mobile app that uses facial recognition to identify and surveil individuals, alleging that the technology
is unreliable and predatory.

The implementation of facial-recognition technology by social gaming and media platforms like Roblox and Discord for user age checks over the past month has
also been met with widespread user criticism. 

As consumer interest among Meta smart glasses grows, with manufacturing partner EssilorLuxottica selling over
seven million pairs in 2025, the integration of facial recognition features may worry potential buyers, civil liberties groups, and local and federal governments.

“Face recognition technology on the streets of America poses a uniquely dire threat to the practical anonymity we all rely on,” Nathan Freed Wessler of the American Civil
Liberties Union told The Times. “This technology is ripe for abuse.”

Although Meta has been developing its proprietary facial recognition
tech for a decade now, the report cites an internal company document that highlights the tech giant’s strategy to “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.”