Meta Faces Class-Action Lawsuits Over Smart Glasses Privacy

More than 70 individuals have filed proposed class-action lawsuits against Meta Platforms, Inc. in federal courts in Northern California and Illinois. The plaintiffs allege that the company's Ray-Ban smart glasses recorded intimate and sensitive footage—including people undressing, using bathrooms, and having sex—without consent. This data was reportedly transmitted to servers and reviewed by low-paid contractors at Samarkand in Kenya to train Meta's artificial intelligence models.

The lawsuits accuse the company of fraud, deceptive marketing, and violating consumer protection laws, specifically challenging the slogan "designed for privacy, controlled by you." A separate legal action in Illinois further alleges that Meta used public Facebook and Instagram photos to train NameTag, a facial-recognition feature designed to identify people in real life.

Meta disputes the claims, stating it filters identifying information to protect privacy and that reviewing data to improve products is a common industry practice. In response to the backlash and reports of users tampering with recording LEDs, Meta has disabled recording for some users and deleted the NameTag feature. Additionally, judicial buildings in New York and the United Kingdom have banned the glasses. Meta is reportedly scrapping recording and photo capabilities for its newest AI glasses model ahead of its Connect developer conference in Menlo Park on September 23.