Meta Removes Facial Recognition Code from Smart Glasses App After Public Discovery
Meta removed facial recognition code from its Meta AI smart glasses companion app one day after WIRED reported the company had quietly embedded an unreleased face-recognition system called NameTag into the app. The code had been present in a version installed on over 50 million phones, though the feature was not activated. Meta stated the feature was exploratory and no final decision has been made about its future implementation.
Meta swiftly removed facial recognition code from its Meta AI companion app following a WIRED investigation that revealed the company had embedded an unreleased face-recognition system into software installed on more than 50 million devices. The system, internally called NameTag, was present in the app's code libraries but remained unactivated. Within one day of WIRED's report, Meta published a new version of the app that stripped out the face recognition code libraries entirely. Meta's vice president of communications Andy Stone characterized the feature as purely exploratory, stating that no final decision had been made regarding its implementation. The rapid removal suggests Meta responded to public scrutiny, though the company has not explained its reasoning or whether the feature might be reintroduced in future versions.
What's missing
Coverage does not adequately address what NameTag was designed to do functionally, what privacy implications the dormant code posed, or whether similar facial recognition systems exist in Meta's other products and services. Additionally, there is limited discussion of regulatory context or whether this discovery triggered any investigation by privacy authorities.
How coverage differed
Wired's headline emphasizes Meta's silence and lack of transparency ("won't say why"), framing the removal as reactive to reporting. Ars Technica's more neutral headline focuses on the timeline and factual removal, with additional context from Meta's official statement that the feature was exploratory, providing the company's perspective alongside the discovery.
What different sources said
- Ars TechnicaCenter
One day after discovery, Meta pulls facial recognition code from its smart glasses
- WiredLeft
Meta Deletes Face-Recognition System From Its Smart Glasses App After WIRED Report
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