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Meta smart glasses can play music, click photos and soon they could even help you recognise people in the crowd.
Meta’s smart glasses could get this feature that has never been welcomed.
Meta has succeeded with the Ray Ban smart glasses and we also have seen the new versions with a built-in display. And soon the company is planning to bring facial recognition through its glasses which is surely going to become a privacy concern for many.
As mentioned in by the New York Times in a report, Meta is running an internal project called Name Tag that will allow people to identify others near them through these glasses and with the help of an AI assistant. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Meta, is said to be aware of the technology and how it could give his eyewear products the big edge over the rivals in the market.
Smart Glasses And AI: Sounds Trouble
Privacy experts and advocates have been worried about the trend around smart glasses, and one of the reasons is to stop facial recognition having an accessible tool. The report, citing sources, suggests Meta realises the risks and concerns that many have around the use of smart glasses with facial recognition powered on, but it also is unlikely to ignore the obvious route to enhance its own growing reputation in the wearable space.
The internal memo from last year says Meta wants to release the feature responsibly, and is aware of its safety and privacy risks. This is quite similar to OpenAI’s push for ads in ChatGPT, and assuring that it will not overdo its use to hamper the overall experience and alleged tracking of its users and their personal chats.
Second Time Lucky?
To be fair this is not the first time when Meta has tried to make facial recognition work through its smart glasses. Back in 2021, the company did plan for the feature but had to cancel those ideas for multiple reasons. Fast-forward to 2026, and you have a thriving smart glasses market, where Meta is leading the space, and its new approach could be less invasive.
The report from NYT suggests the company could limit its access to people you know, or have a profile with Meta platforms, which itself could pose different issues with regulators in the near future. These glasses have obvious benefits but when you look at the history of a brand like Meta, and see them involved in these activities, concerns are bound to rise and rightly so.
Palo Alto, California, USA
February 16, 2026, 16:26 IST
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