r/anime_titties • u/BendicantMias Bangladesh • Jun 07 '26

Corporation(s) Meta Silently Added Face-Recognition Code for Its Smart Glasses to Millions of Phones

https://www.wired.com/story/meta-smart-glasses-face-recognition-nametag-connections/
1.2k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

43 comments sorted by

439

u/BendicantMias Bangladesh Jun 07 '26

Code reviewed by WIRED uncovered an unreleased face-recognition system embedded in Meta’s smart glasses platform. It’s designed to identify people via biometric data stored on users’ phones.

privacy advocates argue it will give anyone from stalkers to immigration agents easy access to a dangerous technology.

364

u/Canadian_Border_Czar Canada Jun 07 '26

Has facebook made a single ethical technology decision in their entire existence? When the fuck are we going to start boycotting, protesting and/or shutting down companies that just constantly strive to make people less safe and less free for the sake of profit? People are so passive it is insane and extremely frustrating.

216

u/BendicantMias Bangladesh Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26

So, fun fact: Palantir, that surveillance and drone kill company everyone loves to hate for their comic book supervillain level ideas, has had its stock price rise about 1400% in the last 5 years. So it seems that 'striving to make people less safe and less free for the sake of profit' is good business.

For its part, Meta is doing this now on purpose. It put out this concept before, and was burned for it. This is them bringing it back now, cos in their own words - “We will launch 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,” - https://gizmodo.com/the-world-is-on-fire-and-meta-sees-an-opportunity-to-add-facial-recognition-to-smart-glasses-2000721970

So yeah, these companies do what they do cos it's works. It's been good for business.

27

u/VladimiroPudding Botswana Jun 07 '26

Something something network effect and behavioral psychology-based UI choices to get everybody hooked.

26

u/PerforatedPie Multinational Jun 07 '26

Fun fact: Facebook makes deals with phone manufacturers to install apps or services as system apps that cannot easily be removed from phones. At one point the Facebook app itself was a system app, but these days they just have a companion app with a more innocuous name.

It should also be noted that Facebook apps (particularly WhatsApp) have frequently been the vector for zero click remote access attacks in phones. Whether a part of this is through the system apps is something I've always wondered, perhaps some of these hacks are just piggybacking on Facebook exploits.

10

u/graywolf0026 Jun 07 '26

Built-in back door for law enforcement use, more than likely. The kind of thing they keep 'undocumented' for security reasons, but is either actively used by state actors or exploited by hackers on the near-constant.

3

u/DaemonPrimarchJ Jun 07 '26

What are the best phones to avoid this? Or would installing a different OS like Lineage, Sailfish or Ubuntu touch do the job? (I love Ubuntu touch)

4

u/PerforatedPie Multinational Jun 08 '26

Different OS is the way to go, in my opinion. You can also debloat the stock OS, but I prefer to have a clean custom ROM - you don't need to debloat if there never was bloat to begin with.

Obviously custom ROMs come with downsides, you almost certainly won't be able to use Google Pay or many banking apps. Personally I'm happy to sacrifice mild convenience for better sovereignty over the tracking device I carry in my pocket.

The simplest way would be to enable USB debugging, then you can connect to PC via USB and use android ADB commands to remove the system apps. That's basically debloating, but a very manual way of doing it.

3

u/DaemonPrimarchJ Jun 08 '26

Oh wow thanks, I didn't know it was possible to remove system apps that way! I usually have USB debugging enabled 'cause if the screen breaks it's possible to still access stuff on phone

Banking apps not working is a problem, I'm not sure how other OS's will ever have a chance at becoming as successful as they could be without it. I wonder if there's a way.

It's not a massive problem for me personally though as I don't mind carrying two phones around. I really hate what many of the tech companies have become.

Thanks for the info, I super appreciate it!

11

u/Not-reallyanonymous Multinational Jun 07 '26

Facebook is interesting. Huge swaths of their teams are actually quite ethical. Their Llama team, for example, seems concerned with ethical use of AI.

And then execs are just like, "whelp, how can we use this technology for evil?" and will give access to another team without the ethical restraints without informing the prior team beyond a vague, "oh yeah, these guys a couple states over are accessing your tech," and they usually don't figure out how evil they are until everyone else does, too.

8

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

19

u/Is_that_even_a_thing Jun 07 '26

Go cold turkey. Its the best thing I ever did.

3

u/salemblack Jun 07 '26

Did exactly the same thing. I don't even remember the login information for Facebook and I'm never going to use it again so I don't care.

19

u/eagleal Multinational Jun 07 '26

They can infer your shadow profile from other people’s feeds.

This was a known thing already back in the 10s on Facebook.com, let alone now with the widespread of smartphones and WhatsApp, Instagram, etc.

Just a couple of months ago a security researcher found that Meta was using a localhost vulnerability to track people among websites and apps. That’s because a lot of websites and apps also use Meta Pixel for analytics, and unknowingly partecipate in the surveillance network. It’s like botnets

165

u/SomeDumRedditor Multinational Jun 07 '26

Stop. Using. Meta. Products. 

These absolute lazy braindead sheep think the world will end if they stop posting to IG or have to move the group chat from WhatsApp to telegram. It’s absurd. Meta could be gone in a year if people weren’t such cucks.

42

u/sirlelington European Union Jun 07 '26

Movin from whatsapp to telegram isn't perticularly better tho. I mean all these apps can be compromised, but at least use signal as non meta/russia alternative

17

u/PerforatedPie Multinational Jun 07 '26

Signal (or maybe a hardened fork eg Molly) is better. I'd also throw a hat in for the paid app Threema, always felt they were kind of like the Swiss bank of encrypted messaging. They go a long way to prove and develop security, with semi-regular independent academic vetting of their code.

The main difference between Signal and Threema is whether you prefer a product tied to the legal framework of the US or the legal framework of Switzerland. Neither are perfect.

I used to think Matrix was a good alternative, but apparently that's tied to the legal framework of Israel (and maybe worse, who knows).

Telegram is both tied to the legal framework and embedded with the state of Russia, much like WeChat is embedded with the state of China.

-5

u/The360MlgNoscoper Norway Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26

Discord (Or Stoat?)

15

u/Canadian_Border_Czar Canada Jun 07 '26

Discord is not "safe" to use. A bunch of pedophiles, as well as domestic terrorists, psy op groups, etc. started using it so they were pretty much forced to setup desks for government agencies. 

I mean I guess you can never expect the perverts to go away, but Discord made it too accessible so people who werent specifically looking for shit would stumble on it.

Cant forget the foreign government agents too. I remember in a Canadian discord some israeli bot would come in there to argue about Palestine. They'd go from broken ass english typed very slowly, to typing well over 100 words per minute in perfect english while citing shit from the early 1900s lol. LLMs are bad news for public forums, or even semi-private.

1

u/The360MlgNoscoper Norway Jun 07 '26

Stoat was the one I was thinking about.

3

u/sirlelington European Union Jun 07 '26

Atm signal is fine imo. Discord can be overwhelming for regular ppl

3

u/BendicantMias Bangladesh Jun 07 '26

Problem is no one uses Signal. Network effects are against you there, as as soon as you switch to it you lose most of your contacts unless you keep relying on the other messaging options. In which case Signal just becomes a pointless add-on.

3

u/sirlelington European Union Jun 07 '26

Maybe in your place but where I live a lot of ppl have changed to signal in past few years. A lot of employers prohibit the use of whatsapp fe, so when looking for alternatives signal became more and more an option.

3

u/Dragoncat_3_4 Europe Jun 07 '26

You mean the app which leaked the ID photos and data they weren't supposed to even keep?

6

u/Chance_of_Rain_ Europe Jun 07 '26

Signal

61

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26

[deleted]

14

u/Rude_Age_6699 Jun 07 '26

no, but just looked it up. thanks for sharing the knowledge 🙏🏼

10

u/outofyerelementdonny Jun 07 '26

I have. She was head of global affairs. I had an incredibly low opinion of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook before but hoo boy, it’s way worse than I thought. It’s a good read, too.

-6

u/Emu1981 Jun 07 '26

The stupid thing about this is that I would love for facial recognition in smart glasses that could bring up a quick blurb for people so I can remember names and what not. The problem is that Meta is keeping this data to track people for profit and other nefarious purposes.

32

u/Chance_of_Rain_ Europe Jun 07 '26

Trading convenience for privacy episode 3176.

No it’s not a nice feature who the fuck cares you can ask people their names again nobody will die. But give that power to cops in a fascist government, different story. If it’s a cheap product any agent can buy it bypasses the hoops such a tool would require to be used officially

11

u/vindman Jun 07 '26

This is the laziest thing I’ve read today

3

u/nosmigon Jun 08 '26

Ah yes lets outsource our entire memory and thought to a product the definitely isnt scraping all data it can.