Safety Advisory: Family-friendly establishments urged to ban Meta’s facial recognition glasses

Today, digital human rights group Fight for the Future is issuing a safety advisory urging family-friendly businesses, schools, hospitals, community centers and places of worship to ban the facial recognition glasses Meta manufactures in partnership with Ray-Ban.

As awareness grows following high profile instances of deepfake child pornography and child predation, glasses that could both film children without the knowledge of their parents and be used to search the Internet for a child’s face and personal information are a clear and prescient danger.

Family-friendly establishments that want to protect children, women, and other vulnerable customers are urged to post a ban sign at all their entrances and to sign the pledge to ban these glasses at https://fftf.link/MetaRayBans

Individuals who would like to request that the businesses and community centers they frequent implement a ban can find resources on that page as well.

Regarding this issue, Fight for the Future’s Campaigns and Communications Director Lia Holland (they/she) said: “Parents should never have to hesitate about bring their children to the grocery store or the toy store for fear that some pedophile is using their Meta Ray-Bans to make porn, or worse. Putting facial recognition into Meta Ray-Bans could give predators an instant connection to conduct a facial recognition search on potential victims. Imagine a kiddo getting their first taste of freedom at an arcade who is approached by a stranger that knows their name, their parents’ names, and many details about them. Or a woman whose stalker doesn’t have to follow her to learn where she lives, where she works, or that she lives alone. Businesses need to ban these glasses now before the AI-supercharged harvest of their most vulnerable customers begins.”