Meta Removes Face-Scanning Code After Public Discovery

Meta just proved that companies actually do respond when people pay attention to their privacy practices.

The tech giant quietly removed facial recognition code from its Ray-Ban smart glasses app on June 5, just 24 hours after Wired magazine discovered the dormant feature. The tool, internally called Name Tag, would have converted photos of faces into biometric identifiers and matched them against every new person a glasses wearer encountered.

The code sat ready to activate in the same app users need to pair their Meta smart glasses to their phones. Meta never turned the feature on, but it was fully built and shipped in a live product that thousands of people were already using.

Wired found the code on June 4 while reviewing the Meta AI companion app. By the next day, Meta had released an update scrubbing Name Tag entirely from the software.

Meta vice president Andy Stone told reporters the feature was "only a pilot effort" and that the company hadn't decided whether to launch it. The intended purpose appeared to be helping forgetful users remember people they'd met before.

But the swift deletion tells a different story. Meta paid engineers to design, build, and deploy this code. The company only removed it after journalists exposed its existence.

The Bright Side

This story shows the power of transparency and public accountability in the tech industry. Independent journalists doing deep code reviews caught something that could have quietly gone live without users understanding what they were agreeing to.

The rapid reversal also demonstrates that even massive companies respond to public scrutiny. When faced with questions about invasive features, Meta chose to remove the code rather than defend it.

Meta smart glasses have already faced privacy concerns, including a lawsuit after footage of intimate moments appeared to be captured without owners' knowledge. The quick action on Name Tag suggests the company is learning that some features create more problems than they solve.

Most people would rather admit they've forgotten someone's name than have that person's face secretly scanned and stored. This episode shows that speaking up about privacy concerns actually works.

Public awareness just stopped a feature that could have turned everyday interactions into data collection opportunities.