Markey and Wyden Question Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg over Meta AI Glasses Privacy Violations, Use of Intimate Images for AI Training

Offshore Meta Contractors Reportedly Reviewing Footage of Users in Intimate Settings; Meta has Failed to Explain How Sensitive Images Are Used to Train AI Systems

Letter Text (PDF)

Washington (October 29, 2026) - Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), today launched an inquiry into reports of severe privacy violations enabled by Meta's AI-enabled smart glasses, including capturing sensitive imagery of users and bystanders without their consent, sending intimate images to overseas contractors, and using highly sensitive images to train Meta's AI systems.

"Although Meta identified risks to bystander privacy and vulnerable populations before launching its glasses in 2021, it nevertheless launched a product tailor-made for invading the privacy of its users and bystanders," the Senators wrote. "Meta's professed commitment to privacy and preventing intimate image abuse rings hollow if the company cannot demonstrate meaningful steps to prevent its own products and practices from facilitating those harms."

Meta smart glasses have been linked to several invasions of users' and bystanders' privacy since the product's launch in 2021, despite the company identifying risks to bystander privacy and vulnerable populations in advance of the product's release. News outlets have cited numerous reports of the use of Meta glasses to sexually harass unsuspecting women for social media content. For example, in October of 2025, 404 Media reported that a network of men secretly filmed women while soliciting sexual services using Meta AI Glasses. The recordings were distributed onto social media platforms that garnered millions of views.

The letter follows a request in March, led by Markey, seeking information about Meta's reported plans to integrate facial recognition technology into Meta Glasses.

In the letter, Markey and Wyden requested answers by November 25, 2026, to questions including:

• In conducting its human rights due diligence, did Meta specifically evaluate the potential for its glasses to facilitate voyeurism, nonconsensual intimate image capture, or similar privacy invasions, distinguishing by risks arising from initial capture, local storage, transmission to Meta, access by employees or contractors, use in AI training, and subsequent disclosure or distribution?
• What testing has Meta conducted of accidental camera activation, recording-indicator tampering, and camera-based AI interactions that do not activate the outward-facing recording indicator?
• What comparable safeguards, if any, does Meta employ in its glasses to prevent the nonconsensual capture, disclosure, or processing of sensitive and intimate imagery?
• What safeguards, if any, does Meta have in place to prevent its own use, disclosure, publishing, and processing of intimate imagery to which the subject depicted never consented?
• To what extent did Meta's teams responsible for women's safety and mitigating intimate image abuse participate in the design, development, and evaluation of Meta's glasses?
• Can individuals-both device owners and people whose images the glasses capture- request deletion of biometric and other data captured by its glasses?

Senator Markey has worked consistently to regulate the use of biometric recognition and other surveillance technologies by private companies and the government.

• In September, Senator Markey reintroduced the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, legislation to prohibit the government from using facial recognition and other biometric technologies.
• In May, Senator Markey and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) led their colleagues in a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding the agency abandon its dangerous proposal, included in DHS's proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2027, to develop "smart glasses" for its immigration officers.
• In February, Senator Markey again urged Amazon to discontinue its facial recognition technology (FRT), "Familiar Faces," embedded in its Ring doorbells, after initially writing to them in October 2025.
• Also in February, Senator Markey, along with Senator Merkley, Senator Wyden, and Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), introduced the ICE Out of Our Faces Act, bicameral legislation that would ban ICE and CBP from acquiring and using facial recognition technology (FRT) and other biometric identification systems.
• In October 2025, Senator Markey led a letter to Amazon's Chief Executive Officer Andrew Jassy, requesting that Amazon abandon its plans to integrate facial recognition technology (FRT) into its Ring doorbells.

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