Meta sued because AI glasses collected sensitive information

The class action lawsuit was filed in California state court by Gina Bartone of New Jersey and Mateo Canu from California, represented by Clarkson Law Firm, on March 4.

According to the application, Meta AI glasses are advertised with promises such as “designed to protect privacy”, “controlled by users”, or “built to protect user privacy”. The plaintiff said she relied on Meta’s marketing and did not see any warnings or information that conflicted with its advertised privacy protections.

However, the group later recorded some evidence showing that images from their glasses, including private moments, “are being monitored by employees abroad”. This is the reason why both of them sued Meta and its eyeglass manufacturing partner Luxottica (USA) for violating consumer protection laws.

Meta has not yet commented.

Theo TechCrunchthe lawsuit stemmed from a newspaper investigation The Swedish Daily (Sweden), which discovered employees at a Meta subcontractor in Kenya were reviewing videos from customers’ Meta AI glasses, including “sensitive” content such as nude photos, sex scenes and toilet scenes.

Meta later explained that the face in the photo was blurred. However, sources say this action is not always effective. The information also prompted the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to open an investigation.

Clarkson Law Firm is an American public interest law firm that has filed lawsuits against many other technology companies in recent years, including Apple, Google or OpenAI. The law firm pointed out the scale of the problem, saying that in 2025 alone more than 7 million people would buy Meta’s smart glasses, meaning their image data could have been entered into the data processing system “for review”, and they “could not refuse”.

Previously, in an interview with BBCMeta said that when people share content with Meta AI, they use third-party contractors to classify the information to improve the user experience with the glasses – which is outlined in the privacy policy. However, in each market, terms are also different. For example, the version for US users reads: “In some cases, Meta will review your interactions with AI, including the content of conversations or messages. This may be done automatically or manually (by a human).”

Meta currently develops many lines of smart glasses, the most popular being Meta Rayban that allows taking photos, recording videos, listening to music and using Meta AI voice assistant, or Quest virtual reality glasses, Orion augmented reality glasses. According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AI-integrated glasses will soon replace traditional glasses, similar to how smartphones once killed feature phones.