{"id":685417,"date":"2026-06-05T06:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T06:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/685417\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T06:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T06:27:11","slug":"wired-found-code-for-an-unreleased-facial-recognition-feature-in-metas-ai-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/685417\/","title":{"rendered":"Wired Found Code For An Unreleased Facial Recognition Feature In Meta&#8217;s AI App"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"subtitle\">Meta was previously reported to be exploring facial recognition for its smart glasses.<\/p>\n<p>                                             &#13;<br \/>\n                                                    &#13;<br \/>\n                            &#13;<br \/>\n                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"gallery-image \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/intro-1780614746.jpg\" data-slide-url=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2187824\/wired-found-code-for-an-unreleased-facial-recognition-feature-in-meta-s-ai-app\/\" data-post-id=\"2187824\" data-slide-num=\"0\" data-slide-title=\"Wired found code for an unreleased facial recognition feature in Meta's AI app: \" width=\"780\" height=\"438\" alt=\"A pair of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses on display.\"\/>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                    Erman Gunes\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n<p>Code for a facial recognition feature that can run on Meta smart glasses is buried in the company&#8217;s Meta AI app, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/meta-smart-glasses-face-recognition-nametag-connections\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">according to a new report from<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/meta-smart-glasses-face-recognition-nametag-connections\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Wired<\/a>. While not currently enabled, accessible to customers or part of a formerly announced feature, the code appears to be further evidence that Meta is considering how facial recognition could work with its smart glasses, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/13\/technology\/meta-facial-recognition-smart-glasses.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The New York Times first reported in February<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The feature, called &#8220;NameTag&#8221; in the code Wired found, is reportedly capable of capturing people&#8217;s faces using the company&#8217;s smart glasses and later notifying the wearer when it recognizes a previously captured face. No part of NameTag is currently running or sending biometric data to Meta&#8217;s servers today, according to a security researcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buchodi.com\/meta-glasses-facial-recognition\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">who reviewed the code Wired found<\/a>, but past versions of the Meta AI app have included interface elements for the feature, like a &#8220;Connections&#8221; menu that suggests users &#8220;remember the people you met.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Anonymous Meta sources who spoke to The New York Times similarly referred to the company&#8217;s facial recognition tool as &#8220;Name Tag.&#8221; Per a memo reviewed during reporting, Meta was interested in launching the feature during a &#8220;dynamic political environment&#8221; in the US because &#8220;civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.&#8221; While there are potential accessibility benefits to a pair of smart glasses that can identify faces for users with visual impairments, the feature poses serious ethical concerns, too.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Regardless of any sensational reporting, the facts are simple: we&#8217;ve said before we&#8217;re exploring these types of features, and what you&#8217;re seeing is just evidence of that exploration,&#8221; Meta&#8217;s Ryan Daniels said in a statement to Engadget. &#8220;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. One decision we can be clear about \u2014 we are not building a central face database.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Meta previously used facial recognition in Facebook as part of the platform&#8217;s photo tagging features, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/facebook-shuts-down-face-recognition-171737198.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">retired the technology<\/a> in 2021 over privacy concerns. The company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/social-media\/meta-is-bringing-back-facial-recognition-with-new-safety-features-for-facebook-and-instagram-222523426.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">introduced facial recognition to Instagram and Facebook again<\/a> in 2024, this time framed as a safety tool for detecting faces used in scam ads. Beyond the existence of the code and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/ryanmac\/facebook-considers-facial-recognition-smart-glasses\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Meta&#8217;s longstanding interest in facial recognition<\/a>, there&#8217;s nothing to suggest Name Tag will be part of a future pair of Meta&#8217;s Ray-Ban or Oakley smart glasses. It is intriguing, though, that evidence of the feature keeps appearing.<\/p>\n<p>Update, June 4, 5:04PM ET:\u00a0Added a statement from Meta on\u00a0Wired&#8217;s report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meta was previously reported to be exploring facial recognition for its smart glasses. &#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; Erman&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":685418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":["post-685417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/685418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}