According to The New York TimesReportMeta is planning to introduce facial recognition functionality to its branded smart glasses this year, including models in collaboration with Ray-Ban or Oakley. This means that in the future, when you're wearing Meta smart glasses and walking down the street, an AI assistant may be able to directly tell you who the person in front of you is.
Internal codename "Name Tag": To make friends, or to spy on privacy?
According to four sources familiar with the matter, the new feature, internally codenamed "Name Tag," works by using a camera lens on the glasses and an AI assistant to allow the wearer to identify the person in front of them and "obtain relevant information."
This technology naturally comes with huge privacy and ethical concerns, which seems to be why Meta hesitated to demonstrate the "Name Tag" at a conference for the blind last year, and may even lead to the feature being temporarily shelved when the first generation of smart glasses is released in 2023.
To mitigate controversy, Meta is still evaluating how this feature will actually work. Sources indicate that the feature will not be an "indiscriminate global manhunt" (meaning it won't allow you to identify a stranger just by glancing at them on the street). It will likely only identify users who have already linked with the wearer on Meta apps (such as Facebook and Instagram), or users whose Instagram account information has been made public.
Taking advantage of political turmoil to break through? Leaked internal memo sparks controversy.
What's most intriguing is the timing of Meta's decision to launch this feature and the strategic considerations behind it.
The New York Times obtained an internal memo from Meta Reality Labs that bluntly stated that the current political turmoil in the United States actually provides them with an excellent time to launch: "We will launch the feature in a dynamic political environment where many of the civil society groups we expect to attack will focus their resources on other (more pressing) issues."
This "taking advantage of the chaos" strategy shows that although Meta is well aware of the destructive power of facial recognition, they are willing to take the risk in order to gain an advantage in the increasingly competitive smart glasses market (especially in the face of potential threats from strong rivals such as OpenAI).
Meta's dark history with facial recognition
Looking back at Meta's dark history related to facial recognition technology, it can be said that it has been constantly testing the public's bottom line.
• 2021:Faced with strong protests from all sectors regarding privacy breaches, Meta announced the shutdown of Facebook's long-standing facial recognition system (primarily used for automatic photo tagging).
• 2024:In an effort to combat ads that use the faces of celebrities or public figures for fraudulent purposes, Meta has quietly brought the technology back to Instagram and Facebook under the guise of an "anti-fraud tool."
• 2025:This fraud detection feature has been expanded to regions outside the United States, including the United Kingdom, Europe, and South Korea.
