Meta Sued Over Privacy Concerns After Employees Allegedly Reviewed Explicit Footage Captured By AI Glasses

Meta is at the center of a class-action lawsuit stemming from an investigation into privacy concerns about the company’s Ray-Ban Meta AI smart glasses and their marketing.

Filed on March 4, 2026, the lawsuit accuses Meta and its glasses manufacturing partner, Luxottica of America, of violating consumer protection laws, TechCrunch reports.

Why Meta’s AI Glasses Are At The Center Of A Lawsuit

Plaintiffs Gina Bartone of New Jersey and Mateo Canu of California allege that Meta violated privacy laws and engaged in false advertising by claiming strong security and privacy protections, per the outlet. According to the filing, Meta marketed its AI smart glasses as “responsible, safe, and engineered to address the privacy concerns that define the AI era.” However, the company’s statements — such as “designed for privacy, controlled by you” and “built for your privacy” — are misleading.

Before this lawsuit, the U.K. regulator the Information Commissioner’s Office launched an investigation after Swedish newspapers reported that Meta workers at a Kenya-based subcontractor were reviewing footage captured by customers’ glasses, per TechCrunch. The reports said some clips included sensitive content, such as nudity or people using the toilet, the outlet notes.

Represented by the Clarkson Law Firm, which has previously sued other major tech companies, the plaintiffs argue that Meta’s slogans around privacy would lead customers to expect that overseas workers could not review footage captured by the glasses, including potentially intimate moments. They say Meta’s marketing did not include clear disclaimers informing users that third-party reviewers may have access to their recordings.

“For ordinary people, privacy is now an everyday worry,” the lawsuit states. “Meta knows this. It also knows that skepticism toward AI products is growing, that its own long record of privacy failures has compounded the problem, and that trust around privacy is the key to turning widespread concern into widespread adoption.”

Meta AI Glasses In High Demand Amid Privacy Concerns

During its fourth-quarter earnings call on Feb. 11, 2026, EssilorLuxottica CEO Francesco Milleri said Meta sold over 7 million units of its AI glasses in fiscal 2025.

“Our success in wearables is helping to propel the AI-glasses revolution, with our iconic brands being a powerful driver of demand,” Milleri said in a statement. “At the same time, our breakthroughs in medtech, myopia management, and audiology are cementing our role as a leader across multiple frontiers.”

According to the newly filed complaint, Meta’s glasses capture footage that is routed into a data review pipeline to train its AI models. Users cannot opt out of having their recordings used, TechCrunch reports.

Meta did not comment on the litigation directly, but in a statement to TechCrunch, spokesperson Christopher Sgro said the company, like many others developing AI systems, sometimes uses contractors to review data shared with Meta AI to enhance the user experience.

“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,” he said. “When people share content with 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 identifying information from being reviewed.”