A WIRED investigation has revealed that Meta has quietly embedded unreleased face-recognition technology into the Meta AI mobile app, which has been installed on more than 50 million phones worldwide. The code, internally referred to as "NameTag," is designed to identify people captured by the camera on Meta's Ray-Ban and Orion smart glasses, then cross-reference that image data against biometric face data stored on the user's device.
Although NameTag is not yet activated, the code exists in the live production app -- meaning it was shipped to tens of millions of users without any public disclosure. WIRED's analysis found the feature added incrementally across multiple app updates this year.
How NameTag Is Designed to Work
According to WIRED's review of the code, NameTag would allow a wearer of Meta's smart glasses to look at a stranger and receive an on-screen notification identifying that person. The identification relies on facial biometric data already associated with a Meta account -- such as a Facebook profile photo -- and would work even in situations where the person being identified has no knowledge that they are being scanned.
The technology's architecture is notable: the comparison happens on-device rather than through a cloud lookup, which means the process can occur quickly and without sending a full image to Meta's servers. However, the end result -- identifying a stranger by face in real-world settings -- raises profound questions about surveillance at scale.
A History of Face Recognition Controversy
Meta shut down its Facebook facial recognition feature in 2021 following years of regulatory pressure and public backlash, at the time announcing it would delete over one billion stored faceprints. NameTag's discovery suggests the company has been quietly working to resurrect the capability -- this time built directly into its wearable computing ecosystem, where its reach into public spaces is far more expansive than a photo-tagging tool on a social network.
When contacted by WIRED, Meta confirmed the existence of the code but characterized NameTag as an unfinished internal project not authorized for release. The company stated it was thinking through how such features might be offered in the future.
Why It Matters
Face recognition at the glasses level represents a step-change in how surveillance technology could be deployed in everyday life. Unlike security cameras mounted in fixed positions, smart glasses are worn by individuals in any environment -- offices, coffee shops, protests, or private gatherings. Privacy advocates warn this could hand stalkers, abusive partners, and even government actors new tools for identifying targets in real time, with no consent from those being scanned.
For enterprise security and compliance teams, this approach of shipping dormant biometric code in broadly distributed consumer apps without disclosure also raises new data governance questions: if this code exists silently today, what is an organization's exposure if employees or visitors use Meta-connected devices near sensitive spaces?