Meta has been sued over privacy concerns over its AI-powered smart glasses, after workers reviewed nudity, sex and other footage

Meta is facing a new lawsuit over its AI-powered smart glasses and their lack of privacy, after a Swedish newspaper investigation found that workers at a Kenya-based subcontracting company were reviewing screenshots of customers’ glasses, which included sensitive content, such as nudity, people having sex, and toilet use.

Reports indicated that Meta claimed to blur faces in images, but sources doubted that this blurring worked consistently. The news prompted the UK regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, to investigate the matter.

Now the tech giant is facing a lawsuit in the US as well. In the newly filed complaint, plaintiffs Gina Barton of New Jersey and Mateo Cano of California, represented by the public interest-focused law firm Clarkson, allege that Meta violated privacy laws and engaged in false advertising.

The complaint alleges that Meta AI smart glasses are advertised using promises such as “designed for privacy, controlled by you,” and “designed for your privacy,” which may not lead customers to assume that footage of their glasses, including intimate moments, was viewed by foreign workers. The plaintiffs believed Meta’s marketing and said they saw no disclaimers or information inconsistent with its advertised privacy protections.

The lawsuit accuses Meta and its eyewear manufacturing partner Luxottica of America of conduct that violates consumer protection laws.

Clarkson’s law firm, which over the years has filed other major lawsuits against tech giants, including Apple, Google and OpenAI, points to the scale of the issues at hand. In 2025, more than seven million people bought Meta smart glasses. Footage taken from those glasses is entered into a data pipeline for review, and users cannot opt ​​out.

Meta told the BBC that when people share content with Meta AI, it uses contractors to review the information to improve people’s experience with the glasses, which is explained in its privacy policy, and pointed to the terms of service of its complementary Meta platforms, without specifying where this was noted. However, the media found that a reference to human review can be found in Meta’s UK AI terms of service.

A version of this policy that applies to the United States states: “In some cases, Meta will review your interactions with AI, including the content of your conversations with or messages to AI, and this review may be automated or manual (human).”

The complaint mainly points out how the glasses were marketed, showing examples of ads that touted their privacy features, describing their privacy settings and “an extra layer of security.”

“You control your data and content,” one ad reads, explaining that smart glasses owners should choose what content is shared with others.

The rise of smart glasses and other “fancy surveillance” technology, such as AI-powered pendants that are always listening, has led to widespread backlash. A developer has published an app that is able to detect when smart glasses are nearby.

Meta had no comment on the lawsuit itself Thursday morning. However, spokesperson Christopher Sgro provided the following statement about the overall issue, saying: “Ray-Ban Meta glasses help you use AI, hands-free, to answer questions about the world around you. Unless users choose to share media they’ve captured with Meta or others, that media stays on the user’s device. When people share content using Meta AI, we sometimes use contractors to review this data for the purpose of improving people’s experience, as many other companies do. We take steps to filter this data to protect people’s privacy and to help prevent information from being audited Definition.”

Updated after publication with meta statement.