Meta is finding inspiration for its smart glasses in some pretty concerning corners. According to Wired, the company is testing software built by a firm that sells surveillance tech to the U.S. government and police. That tech, Wired reports, is tied to a test version of Meta’s unreleased facial recognition feature—you know, the one that was secretly already in the Meta AI app and then abruptly removed.
The company supplying facial recognition technology to Meta, according to license documents obtained by Wired, is Rank One, which, as Wired notes, contracts with institutions like the U.S. Marshals Service. The Marshals Service reportedly uses Rank One’s facial recognition software to identify prisoners without fingerprinting them. The company has also done some work for the U.S. Special Operations Command, developing a tool that could identify a face from as far as 1 kilometer away, and for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which uses Rank One’s tech for surveillance.
Wired reports that the contract between Meta and Rank One authorizes Meta to use its face recognition technology as well as its “liveness detection,” which can pinpoint whether a camera is seeing a real person rather than a photo or mask. Wired’s review of the code already found in the Meta AI app—specifically its dormant facial recognition feature, NameTag—shows traces of Rank One’s tool, including routines that load its license and activate its facial recognition software.
While Meta hasn’t provided much insight into its arrangement with Rank One or its interest in facial recognition in general, mounting evidence suggests that a facial recognition feature for Meta’s smart glasses may eventually be released. A security researcher told Wired in an interview this month that dormant code inside the Meta AI app suggested that some kind of facial recognition tool was “nearly ready to go.”
It’s not altogether surprising that Meta would partner with a company like Rank One on face recognition—military and surveillance tech have a habit of trickling down to consumer markets—but I doubt it’s the look Meta would opt for when people, including civil rights groups and U.S. lawmakers, are already up in arms over the idea. Convincing people that face recognition software in smart glasses won’t be used for surveillance is much harder when you’re talking about, quite literally, surveillance tech.
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