Sama, a US headquartered outsourcing business, which began as a non-profit organisation with the aim of increasing employment through the provision of tech jobs, is now an “ethical” B-corp.
But this is not the first time a contract with Meta has soured.
An earlier deal to moderate Facebook posts attracted criticism, alongside legal action by former employees – some of whom described being exposed to graphic, traumatising content.
Sama later said it regretted taking the work.
Naftali Wambalo of the Africa Tech Workers Movement, who is a petitioner in the continuing legal action around that case, told the BBC he had also spoken with workers involved in the smart glasses contract.
Wambalo believed the reason for Meta’s ending the work was that it didn’t want workers speaking out about human workers sometimes reviewing content captured by the smart glasses.
“What I think are the standards they are talking about here are standards of secrecy,” he told BBC News.
The BBC has asked Meta to respond to this point.
The tech giant has previously said that users were made aware of the possibility of human review in the its terms of service.
Mercy Mutemi a lawyer representing the petitioners, who is also executive director of campaign group the Oversight Lab, said Meta’s statement should be a warning to the Kenyan government.
“We’ve been told that this is our entry route into the AI ecosystem,” she told the BBC. “This is a very flimsy foundation to build your entire industry on.”