Last week, parents and their children in Illinois and California filed a lawsuit against Meta alleging that the company illegally utilized their Facebook and Instagram photos to build NameTag, an unreleased face-recognition system for its smart glasses, and to train generative AI models including Emu and Muse Image. The proposed class action alleges that Meta violated Illinois and California privacy laws by extracting biometric information from people’s photos without notice or consent. The complaint, originating from WIRED in June, detailed a secret embedded feature within the Meta glasses AI companion app, which had been downloaded more than 50 million times. While the feature hadn’t been enabled for users of the app, analysis revealed it was designed to turn faces captured by the glasses into biometric signatures and compare them with a database of faces stored on the user’s phone. This database was configured to receive updates from Meta. At the time, WIRED couldn’t determine where the underlying faceprint data originated. The lawsuit also targets Meta’s image-generation systems, with Meta’s chief product officer Chris Cox stating that NameTag could recognize people through their Meta connections or public Instagram accounts, along with a company patent describing face matching against profile photos and other images held by Meta. The complaint alleges that Meta trained Emu on large quantities of Facebook and Instagram images, with the company’s patent claiming face matching against profile photos and other images held by Meta. Muse Image, released this summer, had earlier drawn criticism after allowing users to generate images based on other people’s public Instagram accounts, a feature the company removed within days after saying it had “missed the mark.” Meta told WIRED in June that it was ‘not building a central face database,’ but it wouldn’t answer questions about whether NameTags would be opt-in or how the system would retain faceprints. The complaint acknowledges that Meta hasn’t disclosed which images, if any, were used for generating biometric data, saying that information remains solely in the company’s possession. The suit also targets Meta’s image-generation systems. Meta has said it trained Emu on large quantities of Facebook and Instagram images and text, with Chris Cox calling those platforms a ‘data advantage’ for its AI systems. The complaint alleges that the training process illegally harvested biometric information about people who appeared in the images. The California claims seek $5,000 for each intentional or reckless violation, or actual damages if greater, and $1,000 for each negligent violation, and injunctive relief. The lawsuit frames the case as part of a much longer pattern of privacy violations from Meta. Reaching back into Facebook’s earliest days, it cites a 2004 chat in which CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly referred to people who had trusted him with their data as ‘dumb fucks.’ Updated 9/11/2026 at 3:09 pm EDT: Added comment from Meta.” , ]}
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Source: Wired
