CALIFORNIA — Meta removed unreleased face-recognition code, known internally as NameTag, from its Meta AI companion app after security researchers and advocacy groups raised privacy concerns. The Meta AI companion app, which supports Meta's smart glasses, has been downloaded over 50 million times.
Versions of the Meta AI app distributed in January included code for face detection, face cropping, and biometric encoding. The NameTag system was designed to convert faces captured by smart glasses into biometric signatures, or faceprints, and compare them against a database stored on the user's device. The system would also crop, index, and store unrecognized faces locally on the device in a folder labeled as pending. Internal documents showed Meta considered launching face recognition for smart glasses this year.
Meta discontinued a similar facial recognition system in 2021 and deleted over one billion Facebook user faceprints that year. The company paid $650 million to settle a class-action lawsuit from Illinois users concerning biometric data collection and agreed to a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas in 2024 over similar allegations.
Andy Stone, Meta's vice president of communications, described the feature as purely exploratory. "No final decision has been made on what to do here, if anything." Stone said. Meta stated nothing had shipped to consumers. The company declined to answer questions regarding the creation of face profile databases, data retention periods, server data transmission, whether the tool targets blind or low-vision users, or whether users could opt in or opt out of the system.
The updated Meta AI app eliminated the face-recognition software and its associated alert functionality for identified individuals. This update also removed a storage folder intended for cropped images and biometric signatures of unrecognized faces. The latest app version maintains a debug menu label and a dormant link designed to open a recognized person's profile.
Cooper Quintin, a security researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Threat Lab, reviewed the app's code. "The feature is not yet exposed to consumers but seems nearly ready to go," Quintin said.
A security researcher tested the app's recognition pipeline. The researcher added a faceprint of deceased philosopher Michel Foucault to the app's gallery, and the app subsequently produced a "Person recognized." notification when triggered with the test image.