In a move that surprises absolutely no one familiar with their track record, Meta is dusting off its old privacy-invading facial recognition tech and slapping it onto your face under the catchy new alias "Name Tag." According to internal memos, the company is gleefully banking on the "dynamic political environment" in the U.S. to act as a convenient smoke screen, assuming critics will be too busy dealing with actual national crises to notice Mark Zuckerberg turning every Ray-Ban wearer into a walking surveillance node. While theyâre pinky-promising a "thoughtful approach" and pinky-swearing to maybe only identify your Instagram mutuals, theyâve simultaneously gutted their internal privacy review process because, as one executive noted, "Mark wants to push on it a little bit." Itâs a bold return to form for a company thatâs already paid billions in settlements for the same behavior, essentially betting that for the low price of seven million pairs of glasses, the public will finally trade the last shred of their "practical anonymity" for the convenience of never having to remember a coworker's name again.
See "Meta Plans to Add Facial Recognition Technology to Its Smart Glasses" from nytimes.com