Meta Faces Lawsuit Over Alleged Biometric Data Collection

Meta faces a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging it used photos from Facebook and Instagram to develop facial recognition technology for its smart glasses without users’ consent.

The 66-page complaint was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by Illinois resident Francisco Alvarez, his minor child, California resident Jeremy Wahl, and Wahl's minor daughter. It claims that Meta used images of both users and non-users to train and test facial recognition technology known internally as NameTag. The system is designed for Meta’s Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses and the Meta AI companion app.

According to the lawsuit, NameTag can turn a face captured by the glasses’ camera into a biometric signature and compare it with faceprints stored on the wearer’s phone. The plaintiffs allege that Meta went further by extracting facial information from photos uploaded to Facebook and Instagram and creating biometric identifiers that could identify people encountered through the glasses.

The complaint also targets Meta’s generative AI systems, including Emu and Muse Image. The plaintiffs argue that training those models on photos containing faces caused them to retain identity-related facial information in their mathematical representations.

Meta has previously said it was exploring facial recognition for its smart glasses but that the feature had not been released to consumers and that no final decision had been made. The company has also said it is not building a central face database.

The lawsuit alleges violations of Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act, as well as California privacy and publicity laws. The plaintiffs are seeking damages and an injunction that would stop the practices described in the complaint. The court has not yet certified the proposed classes.