Meta is once again pushing the boundaries of surveillance, quietly weighing the launch of facial recognition in its camera-equipped smart glasses. Internal documents obtained by The New York Times reveal not just the technology itself, but the strategy behind it: release the feature during a politically chaotic moment when civil liberties groups are too distracted to respond. The proposal would allow the glasses to scan and generate faceprints of every person in view—bystanders included—matching them against databases without consent or awareness. It is mass biometric surveillance, not imposed by the state directly, but normalized through consumer technology worn in everyday life.

This is not uncharted territory for Meta. The company previously retreated from facial recognition after years of lawsuits and nearly $7 billion in settlements tied to deceptive practices and illegal biometric data collection. What makes the current plan more concerning is scale. Moving facial recognition from static photos and platforms into wearable devices turns every street, church, store, and gathering into a potential data collection zone. Faces—unchangeable identifiers—become permanent tracking tokens, creating invisible records of movement, association, and presence. The internal memo’s tone makes clear the backlash is not a moral concern, but a timing issue. SOURCE: Reclaim the Net