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Meta got caught with facial recognition code sitting inside an app downloaded by over 50 million people, and its executives can’t seem to agree on whether it even exists.
WIRED reported on June 4 that unreleased code for a feature called “NameTag” was embedded within Meta’s AI companion app. The feature was designed for use with Meta’s Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses, using on-device AI to detect faces through the glasses’ camera, generate biometric signatures, and alert users when they encountered someone they’d previously met.
The executive contradiction
Meta VP Andy Stone flatly denied the feature’s existence. Meanwhile, CTO Andrew Bosworth took a different approach entirely, calling the WIRED reporting “misleading.”
The next day, Meta removed nearly all traces of the NameTag code from its app updates.
The NameTag system reportedly uses three separate AI models: one for facial detection, one for cropping, and one for biometric encoding.
Prior reporting from The New York Times back in February had already flagged internal discussions about the NameTag feature within Meta.
Meta’s complicated history with faces
In 2021, the company made a big show of dismantling its Facebook photo-tagging facial recognition system and deleting over a billion faceprints.
The rapid reversal, going from denial to code removal within roughly 24 hours, suggests Meta understands exactly how explosive this is. Biometric data sits at the top of the sensitivity pyramid in virtually every privacy framework worldwide, from GDPR in Europe to Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act, which has already cost Meta a $1.4B settlement in the past.
Why the crypto and decentralized identity crowd should care
The core problem NameTag illustrates is straightforward: a centralized company collecting biometric data at scale, without clear user consent mechanisms, with executives who can’t even coordinate their public messaging about it. This is the scenario that decentralized identity protocols like Worldcoin, Polygon ID, and Civic were designed to address.
Worldcoin, which uses iris scanning to create unique identity proofs, has faced its own biometric scrutiny. But its approach at least attempts to put the cryptographic proof in the user’s hands rather than on a company’s servers. Meta’s NameTag, by contrast, appears to centralize biometric encoding within Meta’s ecosystem.
Investors should watch whether regulators in the EU or US open formal inquiries into Meta’s NameTag development, which could trigger broader scrutiny of biometric AI features across the industry.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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