*Meta is facing a federal class action lawsuit filed in San Francisco, with plaintiffs alleging the company made false promises about how its Ray-Ban smart glasses handle user privacy.
According to Engadget, Clarkson Law Firm brought the case on behalf of two buyers from California and New Jersey, who say they would not have purchased the devices had they known the full scope of how their footage could be accessed. The suit is pursuing monetary damages and injunctive relief.
The filing came on the heels of a Svenska Dagbladet investigation revealing that subcontractors working in Kenya had flagged disturbing content they were required to process as part of their duties. Those workers reported coming across highly personal footage, including intimate moments and private bathroom situations, while sorting and labeling video content captured through the glasses.
“This nationwide class action seeks to hold Meta responsible for its affirmatively false advertising and failure to disclose the true nature of surveillance and its connection to the company’s AI data collection pipeline,” the lawsuit states. The filing goes on to allege that the undisclosed review process puts consumers at serious risk, citing concerns around stalking, extortion, identity theft, and damage to personal reputation.
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Meta acknowledged to Engadget that footage from the glasses can reach human reviewers in certain situations, though the company offered no direct response to the lawsuit’s claims. In a statement, a spokesperson noted that content is not transmitted unless a user actively shares it, and that third-party reviews serve to refine the overall product experience.
The lawsuit, however, points out that activating the glasses’ multimodal functions — including Live AI — inherently involves transmitting environmental footage to Meta, a fact the company has not prominently disclosed. Meta’s privacy policy references data being used for training but makes no explicit mention of human involvement in that process. Contractors have reportedly encountered credit card information, explicit content, and recognizable individuals while reviewing footage, and the suit alleges that existing anonymization measures have repeatedly fallen short.
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