Facebook Weighing Up Legality of Facial Recognition in Upcoming Smart Glasses

Facebook is reportedly weighing up the legal implications of building facial recognition technology into a pair of smart glasses that the company is currently developing and which it intends to launch later this year.

facebook aria prototype 1

Prototype Project Aria AR glasses Facebook is using to research AR tech

According to BuzzFeed News, Facebook's chief of AR and VR, Andrew Bosworth, told employees during an internal meeting on Thursday that the company is currently evaluating whether or not a legal framework exists that would allow it to integrate facial recognition tech into the devices.

"Face recognition ... might be the thorniest issue, where the benefits are so clear, and the risks are so clear, and we don’t know where to balance those things," Bosworth said in response to an employee question about whether people would be able to "mark their faces as unsearchable" when smart glasses become a prevalent technology. The unnamed worker specifically highlighted fears about the potential for "real-world harm," including "stalkers."

According to the report, Bosworth was quick to emphasize that nothing had yet been decided and that it could well prove that current state laws would make it impossible for Facebook to offer people the ability to search for other people based on the real-world profile of their face.

Following the story's publication, Bosworth took to Twitter to underline the fact that Facebook had been "open" about its efforts to develop AR glasses, which he said are "still in the early stages."

"Face recognition is a hugely controversial topic and for good reason and I was speaking about was how we are going to have to have a very public discussion about the pros and cons," said Bosworth, adding in a follow-up tweet: "In our meeting today I specifically said the future product would be fine without it but there were some nice use cases if it could be done in a way the public and regulators were comfortable with."

Facebook first publicly spoke about its smart glasses project last year, when it claimed that the product would arrive "sooner rather than later" in 2021. The glasses are reportedly being developed in partnership with Ray-Ban, and are expected to go head to head with similar rival products from Snapchat and Amazon.


Facebook has used facial recognition on its social network to identify people in pictures and power photo tag suggestions, but using the technology in an outward-facing, real-world capacity is a particularly sensitive issue. The controversy has been amplified by reports of government authorities and private businesses exploring the technology as a means of identifying and tracking civilians, combined with a lack of federal regulation surrounding its use.

Facial recognition has been implemented in Apple's Photos app and Apple has used it as a security feature for unlocking iPhones and iPads via biometric authentication. Apple is also working on smart glasses that will augment peoples' real-world perspective with digital features, although its product is still believed to be "several years away" from launch and there is currently no suggestion that Apple intends to use the technology in its rumored AR glasses. At any rate, given the company's privacy focus, any such application would be highly unlikely to resemble the kind that Facebook appears to be exploring.

For more information on Apple's rumored smart glasses, be sure to check out our dedicated guide.

Popular Stories

M5 MacBook Pro

Apple Announces New 14-Inch MacBook Pro With M5 Chip

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models. In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB. Like...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

Apple Debuts New iPad Pro With M5 Chip, Faster Charging, and More

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips. The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
apple oct 2024 mac tease

Apple Expected to Announce These Two to Three Products 'This Week'

Sunday October 12, 2025 7:05 am PDT by
Apple plans to announce new products "this week," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple's "Mac Your Calendars" teaser last October In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said the products set to be updated this week include the iPad Pro, Vision Pro, and "likely" the base 14-inch MacBook Pro, with all three likely to receive a spec bump with Apple's next-generation M5 chip. Gurman...
maxresdefault

Here's Everything Apple Announced Today

Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below. MacBook Pro M5...
joz macbook tease

Apple Teases Upcoming M5 MacBook Pro Launch: 'Something Powerful is Coming'

Tuesday October 14, 2025 11:59 am PDT by
Apple marketing chief Greg Joswiak today teased the launch of an upcoming product, saying "something powerful is coming" on social media. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. A short animation accompanying Joswiak's teaser reveals a brief glimpse of a MacBook Pro along with the words "coming soon." The shape of the MacBook Pro is a V, which is the Roman numeral...
airpods max 2024 colors

AirPods Max 2: Everything We Know So Far

Tuesday October 14, 2025 8:43 am PDT by
Apple's AirPods Max have now been available for almost five years, so what do we know about the second-generation version? According to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new AirPods Max will be lighter than the current ones, but exactly how much is as yet known. The current AirPods Max weigh 0.85 pounds (386.2 grams), excluding the charging case, making it one of the heavier...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
Vision Pro M5 Announcement

Apple Updates Vision Pro With M5 Chip, Dual Knit Band, and 120Hz Support

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:14 am PDT by
Apple today updated the Vision Pro headset with its next-generation M5 chip for faster performance, and a more comfortable Dual Knit Band. The M5 chip has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a 16-core Neural Engine, and we have confirmed the Vision Pro still has 16GB of RAM. With the M5 chip, the Vision Pro offers faster performance and longer battery life compared...
macbook pro blue

Apple's M5 MacBook Pro Imminent: What to Expect

Tuesday October 14, 2025 4:35 pm PDT by
Apple is going to launch a new version of the MacBook Pro as soon as tomorrow, so we thought we'd go over what to expect from Apple's upcoming Mac. M5 Chip The MacBook Pro will be one of the first new devices to use the next-generation M5 chip, which will replace the M4 chip. The M5 is built on TSMC's more advanced 3-nanometer process, and it will bring speed and efficiency improvements. ...
MacBook Pro M5 Screen

New MacBook Pro Does Not Include a Charger in the Box in Europe

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:59 am PDT by
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip does not include a charger in the box in European countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, and others, according to Apple's online store. In the U.S. and all other countries outside of Europe, the new MacBook Pro comes with Apple's 70W USB-C Power Adapter, but European customers miss out....

Top Rated Comments

Mike_Trivisonno Avatar
61 months ago
Facebook just gets creepier and creepier.
Score: 36 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ScottHammet Avatar
61 months ago
Facebook's only concern for the question of legality is whether or not they think they'll have a defensible position for their intended misuse of their capability. One thing we can all count on is that no matter what use they market these for, Facebook has its own clandestine intentions. Just ponder a database that tracks every person who's ever been within focal range of these glasses while you're wearing them? Think that won't end up on some government agencies subpoena list? And one wonders how many "customized" ads for, say, creepy personal hygiene products, my browser will suddenly serve up after being "detected" by someone wearing these who recently bought them.
Score: 31 Votes (Like | Disagree)
breather Avatar
61 months ago
Please, no face recognition. I do NOT trust Facebook on this (and many other things).
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CarpalMac Avatar
61 months ago
I will never hold a conversation with anyone wearing these or any other similar type of glasses. = FACT
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
vicviper789 Avatar
61 months ago
Don’t be a glasshole ?
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
svanstrom Avatar
61 months ago
Apple doing an on-device solution matching against people in your adressbook I would accept; but Facebook… HELL NO!!

There's just no way that they can be trusted with some nice sounding legalease about how they aren't going to be evil this time.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)