Meta is facing a new lawsuit over its AI smart glasses and lack of privacy an investigation by Swedish newspapers found that workers at a subcontractor based in Kenya were reviewing footage from customer glasses, which included sensitive content such as nudity, people having sex and using the toilet.
Meta claimed to blur faces in images, but sources disputed that this blur worked consistently, references are noted. The news prompted the UK regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, to investigate the matter.
Now, the tech giant is also facing a lawsuit in the United States. In the new complaint, plaintiffs Gina Bartone of New Jersey and Mateo Canu of California, represented by the public interest law firm Clarkson, allege that Meta violated privacy laws and engaged in false advertising.
The complaint alleges that Meta AI smart glasses are advertised using promises such as “designed for privacy, controlled by you” and “built for your privacy,” which may not lead customers to assume that their glasses’ video, including private moments, was being monitored by foreign workers. The plaintiffs believed Meta’s marketing and said they saw no disclaimers or information contradicting the advertised privacy protections.
The lawsuit accuses Meta and its eyewear partner Luxottica of America of conduct that violates consumer protection laws. Meta has no comment on the lawsuit at this time.
Law firm Clarkson, which over the years has filed other major lawsuits against tech giants, including Apple, Googleand OpenAIshows the scale of the issues under consideration. In 2025, over seven million people have purchased Meta’s smart glasses, meaning their footage is fed into a data pipeline for review and cannot be opted out.
Meta told the BBC that when people share content with Meta AI, it uses contractors to review the information to improve people’s experience with the glasses, which is explained in its privacy policy and points out Meta Platforms Supplemental Terms of Servicewithout specifying where this occurred. The news agency, however, found that there was a reference to human review Meta’s UK AI Terms of Service.
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A version of this policy applicable to US states “In some cases, Meta will review your interactions with AI, including the content of your conversations or messages to AI, and this review may be automated or manual (human).”
The complaint mainly points to how the glasses are marketed, showing examples of ads touting the privacy benefits, describing their privacy settings and “additional layer of security.”
“You’re in control of your data and content,” one ad read, explaining that smartglasses owners had to choose what content to share with others.
The rise of smart glasses and other “luxury tracking” technologies, such as the always-on artificial intelligence lockets, have sparked a widespread backlash. A developer has released an app capable of detecting when smart glasses are nearby.
Meta had no comment on the lawsuit itself, as it was just filed.
However, spokesperson Christopher Sgro made the following statement regarding the general issue, saying: “Ray-Ban Meta glasses help you use artificial intelligence, hands-free, to answer questions about the world around you. Unless users choose to share the media they’ve captured with Meta or others, that media remains on the user’s device. When people share content for the purpose of reviewing multi-contractor AI data, we use some times the expertise of Meta’s experts. We take steps to filter this data to protect people’s privacy and prevent the scrutiny of identifying information.”
Updated after publication with Meta statement.
