EPIC joins ACLU’s ‘Eyewear, Not Spyware!’ campaign to fight Meta’s surveillance glasses

On Monday, EPIC joined an ACLU-led coalition of more than 70 organizations across the country by signing an open letter urging Meta to halt and publicly disavow its plans to add facial recognition to its Ray-Ban smart glasses.  

EPIC has vocally opposed Meta’s plan since the New York Times broke news of its existence in February. The day the story broke, EPIC asked the Federal Trade Commission and state enforcers to investigate this privacy abuse and prevent Meta from moving forward with it.  

The coalition letter emphasizes that Meta’s surveillance glasses would exploit consumers, endanger vulnerable communities, and profoundly undermine civil rights and civil liberties. 

“People should be able to move through their daily lives without fear that stalkers, scammers, abusers, federal agents, and activists across the political spectrum are silently and invisibly verifying their identities and potentially matching their names to a wealth of readily available data about their habits, hobbies, relationships, health, and behaviors,” it reads. 

Meta has a long history of privacy abuses, and, even without facial recognition, Meta glasses intrude on Americans’ privacy by allowing wearers to covertly record everyone they come into contact with. Incorporating real-time facial recognition into these glasses would be a major escalation. EPIC hopes that these coalition efforts, including a separate letter from earlier this month, will persuade Meta to change course and spur regulators to action. 

“Meta’s reported plans to introduce this technology into broadly available consumer products is a red line society must not cross,” Monday’s letter reads. “Preventing this outcome is not just a privacy preference. It is a prerequisite for a free and safe society.” 

Want to join the fight? Visit the ACLU’s website to send a message to Meta.