A group of parents and children from California and Illinois filed a class action lawsuit against Meta. The plaintiffs allege that the company used photos from Facebook and Instagram without consent to develop NameTag, an unreleased facial recognition feature for its smart glasses.
The lawsuit claims Meta violated privacy laws in California and Illinois by utilizing biometric information. According to the filing, the system was designed to convert faces captured by glasses into biometric signatures and compare them against a database stored on the user's phone.
The plaintiffs argue that the data was derived from social media images, citing a company patent and internal reports. The suit also alleges that Meta used this data to train its AI models, including Emu and Muse Image.
A Meta spokesperson stated the lawsuit is meritless and emphasized that the company is not building a universal database of faces. The company noted that NameTag has not been released to consumers and no final decision has been made regarding the feature.
Separately, reports indicate that Meta's Muse AI system has faced challenges in performing basic consumer tasks. Tests showed the AI struggled with errands like purchasing household goods, raising questions about the reliability of its agentic AI business model.
