TL;DR: On March 17, three U.S. senators sent Meta a letter demanding answers about plans to add facial recognition to Ray-Ban smart glasses. They want to know if Meta will let users upload photos of friends, family, and coworkers to create personal facial recognition databases. They want to know if Meta will share biometric data with law enforcement. They want to know why Meta abandoned this technology in 2021 over ethics concerns but is now bringing it back. Meta has until April 6 to respond.
What the Senators Want to Know
Senators Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) didn't mince words in their March 17 letter to Mark Zuckerberg [1].
They're asking Meta to answer six direct questions by April 6, 2026:
- Can people delete their biometric data? Both device owners and bystanders who get scanned without consent.
- Does Meta use biometric data to train AI? If so, can people opt out?
- Has Meta done any privacy assessments? Internal reviews or third-party audits of biometric practices?
- Can users upload photos of known individuals? Friends, family, coworkers, public figures, to create personal facial recognition databases?
- Has Meta evaluated civil liberties risks? Stalking, harassment, doxxing, government misuse?
- Will Meta share biometric data with law enforcement?
The last question matters most. Federal agencies already use facial recognition to identify protesters and build databases of people exercising their First Amendment rights. Put facial recognition in millions of consumer devices, and you've just deputized the public to help.
Why This Is Different From Your Phone Camera
The senators get why smart glasses are worse than phones. From their letter:
“Smart glasses, often indistinguishable from regular glasses, are designed to be worn throughout the day as its user passes hundreds, if not thousands, of people, and in a single day, the user could scan thousands of faces, with no practical way for a bystander to consent or even know about such real-time identification.”
When someone pulls out a phone camera, you notice. You can turn away. You can ask them to stop. Smart glasses? You have no idea you're being scanned, identified, and catalogued.
The letter warns that deploying facial recognition in consumer glasses “risks entrenching a system in which Americans are routinely scanned, catalogued, and analyzed as they move through daily life.”
Meta Tried This Before, and Stopped
Here's the part Meta would rather you forget: the company abandoned facial recognition on its social platform in 2021. At the time, Meta said it was responding to “ongoing concern about the role of facial recognition technology in society.”
That was three years ago. Now they're bringing it back, but in a device you wear on your face all day.
The senators' letter references internal Meta communications reported by the New York Times. According to those reports, Meta planned to release the facial recognition feature quietly “to avoid public scrutiny.” Internal memos noted this was good timing because “civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.”
Translation: Meta knows this is controversial. They're hoping nobody notices.
This Comes After the Kenya Scandal
The senators' letter arrives two weeks after a Swedish investigation revealed that contractors in Kenya were viewing intimate footage captured through Meta smart glasses, including people using toilets, undressing, and having sex.
A class action lawsuit filed March 4 accuses Meta of overstating privacy protections. The Electronic Frontier Foundation published a warning titled “Think Twice Before Buying or Using Meta's Ray-Bans.”
Now Meta wants to add facial recognition to these same glasses.
What Happens Next
Meta has until April 6 to respond. Based on past behavior, expect a vague statement about “privacy controls” and “user choice” that doesn't actually answer the questions.
The senators can't force Meta to change anything. But this letter puts the company on record. If Meta rolls out facial recognition and bad things happen, no one can say they weren't warned.
For users, the message is simple: don't buy these things. And if you're near someone wearing them, assume you're being recorded.