When Meta sees an opportunity for a bad idea, it tends to run with it, and unfortunately, that fly-to-sh*t strategy may encompass adding facial recognition to its smart glasses. According to a report from Wired, latent code found inside the Meta AI app shows that Meta has been actively building a facial recognition tool that could be deployed through its Ray-Ban and Oakley-branded smart glasses, and that tool is already technically on people’s phones.
Per the report: “Code discreetly added to Meta’s AI app over multiple updates this year shows that the feature, internally called “NameTag,” identifies people captured by the glasses’ camera and, when activated, alerts the wearer when it recognizes someone.” The code inside the app isn’t active yet, but according to Cooper Quintin, a security researcher and senior public interest technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Threat Lab, who was asked to review the code by Wired, it’s “nearly ready to go.” As Wired notes, that state of almost readiness seems contradictory compared to previous messaging by Meta, which previously stated it would take a very “thoughtful” approach to face recognition before rolling anything out. The thing is, that statement was given to Wired in April, but its recent investigation shows some code was already added as early as January, before Meta made an official comment. © Raymond Wong / Gizmodo As for the code itself, it’s as bad as it sounds. Wired reports that, in its current form, NameTag would vacuum up faces through smart glasses’ camera and create “unique biometric signatures” or “faceprints” and check those faceprints against faceprints saved on a user’s phone to identify them. Wired says that faces that are recognized will “trigger notifications” while others are “cropped, indexed, and saved to a folder marked ‘pending.'”
