Wyden, Merkley Demand Transparency from Meta on Facial Recognition Technology in Smart Glasses

Washington, D.C.– U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley (both D-Ore.) today demanded transparency from Meta on the company’s plans to integrate facial recognition into its smart glasses.
Smart glasses are designed to be worn throughout the day as their user passes hundreds, if not thousands, of people whose faces could be scanned without any practical way for a bystander to consent to or even know about this real-time identification. While facial recognition may offer real benefits for blind and visually impaired users, Meta’s history of failing to protect user privacy raises serious questions about its plan to deploy this technology in its smart glasses.
“Despite Meta’s desire to minimize public attention on this product, the deployment of smart glasses equipped with facial recognition technology threatens Americans’ privacy rights and civil liberties, and therefore warrants close scrutiny,”wrote Wyden and Merkley along with U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) to Meta Chair and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “The widespread deployment of facial-recognition-enabled smart glasses also risks accelerating the normalization of mass surveillance in the United States,”
Despite abandoning facial recognition technology across its platforms in 2021 over ethical concerns, an internal memo revealed Meta intends to release this technology and hopes that the current chaotic political environment will help Meta avoid public scrutiny.
“Federal agencies are already using facial recognition tools to identify individuals engaged in lawful protest activity and potentially to assemble databases of those exercising their First Amendment rights. This abuse of facial recognition tools demonstrates how easily real-time identification technologies can be repurposed to discourage political expression, target vulnerable communities, and chill lawful dissent,”concluded the senators.
The senators requested answers by April 6, 2026, to questions that include:
The text of the letter ishere.