Meta公司为其智慧眼镜开发了一套名为NameTag的人脸辨识系统，相关程式码早在2025年初便已嵌入数千万用户手机上的Meta AI应用程式中，但该功能并未对外开放使用。WIRED于6月4日率先报导此事后，Meta隔日即删除了相关程式码，公司高层则反复强调该功能「并不存在」，引发了一场关于「功能」与「存在」定义的语意争论。
Meta技术长Andrew Bosworth随后在一档公开播客中详细描述了NameTag的运作方式：用户戴著眼镜与他人见面时，可让系统记住对方的面孔与姓名，日后再次相遇时即可辨识。尽管Bosworth对该功能赞誉有加，Meta发言人却坚持他仅用了「would be」（将会是）这一假设性用语，因此与公司先前声称功能不存在的立场并无矛盾。独立研究人员的分析证实，该应用程式中确实存在一套技术上可运作的人脸辨识管线。
NameTag系统将人脸转化为独特的数位「脸纹」，储存在用户装置上而非集中式资料库中。此一设计可能是为了规避伊利诺州BIPA等生物辨识隐私法律的限制——Meta曾因Facebook的自动人脸辨识功能面临数十亿美元的和解金。然而，法院对于企业是否「持有」储存在用户装置上的生物辨识资料意见分歧，关键在于用户能否自主控制数据以及企业是否有能力存取这些资料。Meta拒绝回答WIRED关于数据是否会离开装置等核心隐私问题。
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.