If you own Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, it’s time to double-check your privacy settings—because the Ray-Ban Meta glasses privacy update gives Meta significantly more control over your personal data.
In a move that’s raising eyebrows among privacy advocates, Meta has quietly updated its privacy policy for Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, enabling AI-powered features by default. That means photos, videos, and even voice recordings captured using the glasses could now be stored and used to train Meta’s AI models, without you actively opting in.
According to a report by The Verge, Meta sent emails to Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses owners on Tuesday, informing them that its AI assistant will now be active by default. With AI features switched on, the glasses will analyze visual and audio data collected during use. What’s more concerning? Meta will retain your voice recordings, and you can’t opt out of having them used for AI training—unless you manually delete them, one by one, through the companion app.
How Much Is Meta Listening?
While the glasses aren’t always recording, they do store everything said after the wake phrase “Hey Meta.” This means even casual use could result in recordings being captured and used as training fodder for Meta’s generative AI technologies.
Meta’s official policy states that voice recordings and transcripts can be stored for up to a year to help enhance its products. But unless you’re carefully managing these settings, your data is likely feeding into the same AI ecosystem behind tools like Meta’s LLaMA models.
This practice mirrors a recent change from Amazon, which now routes all Echo voice commands through the cloud, eliminating the ability to process speech locally—yet another blow to privacy-first consumers.
Why Meta Wants Your Voice and Visual Data
Meta, Amazon, Google, and other tech giants are racing to develop ever-more powerful generative AI. One key ingredient? Diverse and plentiful voice data. The more voices, accents, and languages these models can learn from, the better their speech processing and user personalization become.
But this raises ethical questions. A user snapping a picture of a friend using their Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses might not realize they’re also contributing to Meta’s AI training set. With no clear boundaries on what data gets stored—or for how long—this privacy shift blurs the lines between product functionality and passive data harvesting.
A Broader Trend of AI-Powered Surveillance?
This Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses privacy update is part of a larger trend: tech companies subtly moving toward more invasive data collection under the guise of improving AI. As wearable devices become more advanced, so too do the risks of passive surveillance, especially when the user is unaware of the implications.
Meta has already confirmed that it uses public Facebook and Instagram posts shared by U.S. users to train its LLaMA models. Now, with the rollout of AI features in its wearables, Meta’s data reach is expanding from public platforms to private, real-world interactions.
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