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Meta faces a growing legal challenge over its smart glasses, which integrate computer vision and voice capabilities to analyze the physical world in real time. The original complaint, filed in federal court in California in March, alleged that despite marketing the glasses as privacy-focused and user-controlled, Meta transmitted recordings to third-party contractors overseas for annotation and labeling—a standard step in machine learning development. An amended complaint filed on August 31 expanded the scope significantly, now including "bystanders" who were never users of the product but were recorded without knowledge or consent.
According to the lawsuit, when users activate the glasses' AI features, both audio and visual data are transmitted to Meta's servers for processing and ultimately used to train the company's large language and vision models. The plaintiff's counsel argues this creates what amounts to a "surveillance economy," where the distinction between consumer and non-consumer breaks down entirely. A February 2026 investigation by Swedish media outlets interviewed workers at Sama, a Kenyan data-annotation firm contracted by Meta, who reported reviewing intimate footage captured by the glasses—including footage of people in private situations. Meta has previously disclosed that it sends user data for annotation by contractors, but the lawsuit contends the company failed to fully disclose either the scope of data collection or the sensitivity of material being reviewed. The case touches on a core tension in AI development: the industry's appetite for scale and diversity in training data versus individuals' reasonable expectations of privacy in their physical surroundings.