Meta Adds On-Device Face Recognition Code to AI App Required for Smart Glasses

Wired reported that Meta added code for a face-recognition feature called NameTag to its AI companion app over multiple updates in 2026. The app has been downloaded more than 50 million times and is required for key functions on Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses. The code was integrated as early as January 2026.

Three AI models that detect faces, crop them, and encode them into biometric signatures now run on users' phones. When activated, NameTag converts faces captured by the glasses into faceprints and compares them to a database stored on the user's device. ” The database on each phone is configured to receive updates from Meta.

NameTag would restore a capability Meta said it had ended in 2021. That year the company announced it would delete more than a billion faceprints from Facebook users. 4 billion settlement with Texas in 2024 over biometric-data collection.

In April 2026 more than 70 advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Privacy Information Center, and Fight for the Future, called on Meta to abandon NameTag. A Meta spokesperson said in April: “Our competitors offer this type of face-recognition product, we do not.

” Meta spokesperson Ryan Daniels stated: “Nothing has shipped to consumers and no final decision has been made on what to do here, if anything.

If we do decide to roll something out, we will take a thoughtful approach and do so with full transparency. ” Meta’s earlier face-recognition system was announced by Facebook in 2010 and shut down in November 2021. EssilorLuxottica, which manufactures the Ray-Ban and Oakley glasses, did not respond to requests for comment.