Meta is facing a class action lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco over the privacy marketing of its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The complaint, filed March 4 by the Clarkson Law Firm, alleges Meta misled buyers by advertising the glasses as "designed for privacy, controlled by you" while sending footage to a contractor in Kenya for human review. Meta denies wrongdoing and says human review is disclosed in its privacy policy.
The lawsuit follows an investigation by Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten that interviewed workers at Sama, the Kenya-based contractor. According to those workers, the material they reviewed included people undressing, using bathrooms, sexual activity, credit card numbers, and personal documents, and Meta's stated face-blurring did not consistently work. Meta has since ended its contract with Sama, citing performance standards. Sama disputes that.
Meta's position is that media stays on the user's device unless the user shares it with Meta AI. The catch is that any user who turns on the multimodal AI features (the part where the glasses answer questions about what the camera sees) cannot use them without sending the captured imagery to Meta's servers. The plaintiffs argue that contradicts the privacy marketing.
The UK's Information Commissioner's Office is investigating Meta's data practices, and Kenya's data protection authority has opened its own investigation.
Meta sold roughly seven million Ray-Ban smart glasses in 2025, more than any other maker. Apple Glasses are coming in early 2027 and Samsung's Galaxy Glasses ship this year. The questions this case raises will follow them all.