Seven Billion Reasons for Facebook to Abandon its Face Recognition Plans

The New York Times reported that Meta is considering adding face recognition technology to its smart glasses. According to an internal Meta document, the company may launch the product “during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.” 

This is a bad idea that Meta should abandon. If adopted and released to the public, it would violate the privacy rights of millions of people and cost the company billions of dollars in legal battles.   

Your biometric data, such as your faceprint, are some of the most sensitive pieces of data that a company can collect. Associated risks include mass surveillance, data breach, and discrimination. Adding this technology to glasses on the street also raises safety concerns.  

 This kind of face recognition feature would require the company to collect a faceprint from every person who steps into view of the camera-equipped glasses to find a match. Meta cannot possibly obtain consent from everyone—especially bystanders who are not Meta users.  

Dozens of state laws consider biometric information to be sensitive and require companies to implement strict protections to collect and process it, including affirmative consent.  

Meta Should Know the Privacy and Legal Risks  

Meta should already know the privacy risks of face recognition technology, after abandoning related technology and paying nearly $7 billion in settlements a few years ago.  

In November 2021, Meta announced that it would shut down its tool that scanned the face of every person in photos posted on the platform. At the time, Meta also announced that it would delete more than a billion face templates. 

Two years before that in July 2019, Facebook settled a sweeping privacy investigation with the Federal Trade Commission for $5 billion. This included allegations that Facebook’s face recognition settings were confusing and deceptive. At the time, the company agreed to obtain consent before running face recognition on users in the future.   

In March 2021, the company agreed to a $650 million class action settlement brought by Illinois consumers under the state’s strong biometric privacy law. 

And most recently, in July 2024, Meta agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle claims that its defunct face recognition system violated Texas law.  

 Privacy Advocates Will Continue to Focus our Resources on Meta  

 Meta’s analysis that it can avoid scrutiny by releasing a privacy invasive product during a time of political crisis is craven and morally bankrupt. It is also dead wrong.  

Now more than ever, people have seen the real-world risk of invasive technology. The public has recoiled at masked immigration agents roving cities with phones equipped with a face recognition app called Mobile Fortify. And Amazon Ring just experienced a huge backlash when people realized that a feature marketed for finding lost dogs could one day be repurposed for mass biometric surveillance.  

The public will continue to resist these privacy invasive features. And EFF, other civil liberties groups, and plaintiffs’ attorneys will be here to help. We urge privacy regulators and attorneys general to step up to investigate as well.