Meta公司為其智慧眼鏡開發了一套名為NameTag的人臉辨識系統，相關程式碼早在2025年初便已嵌入數千萬用戶手機上的Meta AI應用程式中，但該功能並未對外開放使用。WIRED於6月4日率先報導此事後，Meta隔日即刪除了相關程式碼，公司高層則反覆強調該功能「並不存在」，引發了一場關於「功能」與「存在」定義的語意爭論。
Meta技術長Andrew Bosworth隨後在一檔公開播客中詳細描述了NameTag的運作方式：用戶戴著眼鏡與他人見面時，可讓系統記住對方的面孔與姓名，日後再次相遇時即可辨識。儘管Bosworth對該功能讚譽有加，Meta發言人卻堅持他僅用了「would be」（將會是）這一假設性用語，因此與公司先前聲稱功能不存在的立場並無矛盾。獨立研究人員的分析證實，該應用程式中確實存在一套技術上可運作的人臉辨識管線。
NameTag系統將人臉轉化為獨特的數位「臉紋」，儲存在用戶裝置上而非集中式資料庫中。此一設計可能是為了規避伊利諾州BIPA等生物辨識隱私法律的限制——Meta曾因Facebook的自動人臉辨識功能面臨數十億美元的和解金。然而，法院對於企業是否「持有」儲存在用戶裝置上的生物辨識資料意見分歧，關鍵在於用戶能否自主控制數據以及企業是否有能力存取這些資料。Meta拒絕回答WIRED關於數據是否會離開裝置等核心隱私問題。
Meta developed a face-recognition system called NameTag for its Ray-Ban smart glasses and embedded its code in the Meta AI companion app, which has been downloaded tens of millions of times, as early as January 2025. After WIRED reported on the dormant but functional code in June, Meta deleted it the following day. Company executives insisted the feature "doesn't exist," sparking a semantic dispute over what constitutes an existing feature when its code is deployed but not user-accessible.
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth subsequently described NameTag in detail on a public podcast, explaining it would recognize people a user has previously met while wearing the glasses. Despite his enthusiastic endorsement, Meta's communications team emphasized his use of the conditional "would be" to maintain there was no contradiction with earlier denials. Independent experts who reviewed the app's code at WIRED's request confirmed a technically operational face-recognition pipeline, and one researcher successfully used it to identify a photograph.
The NameTag system converts faces into numerical "faceprints" stored on users' devices rather than in a central database—a design choice that may be intended to navigate biometric privacy laws such as Illinois's BIPA, under which Meta previously paid hundreds of millions in settlements over its Facebook face-recognition feature. Courts remain divided on whether companies "possess" biometric data stored locally on users' phones; the critical legal question is whether users control the data and whether the company can access it. Meta declined to answer WIRED's questions about data retention, third-party licensing, and whether faceprint data ever leaves the device.