Meta will ruin its smart glasses by being Meta
TL;DR
Meta's potential addition of facial recognition to its Ray-Ban smart glasses raises privacy concerns, with many users hesitant due to Meta's reputation and past controversies, despite arguments that similar tech already exists elsewhere.
Whenever I write about Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, I already know the comments I'm going to get. Cool hardware, but hard pass on anything Meta makes; will wait for someone else to come along. It's hard to imagine that sentiment changing anytime soon after The New York Times reported that Meta mulled launching facial recognition software "during a dynamic political environment" precisely because privacy advocates would be distracted.
Smart glasses evangelists often tell me this fear is somewhat overblown. After all, the phone in your pocket also has a camera. The government already uses facial recognition tech, and CCTV feeds are everywher …