Meta (META) is facing a new lawsuit in the U.S. over privacy concerns of its AI smart glasses, TechCrunch reported on Thursday, following an investigative report by Swedish newspapers that said workers at a Kenya-based subcontractor are reviewing footage from Meta’s glasses, which includes sensitive content, like nudity, sex, and people using the toilet.
The U.S. lawsuit, filed by Clarkson Law Firm, alleges that Meta violated privacy laws and engaged in false advertising. The suit charges Meta and its glasses manufacturing partner Luxottica of America (ESLOF) with conduct that violates consumer protection laws.
Meta claimed it was blurring faces in images, but sources told the Swedish newspapers that the blurring did not work consistently. The investigative report also prompted the U.K. regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, to further probe the matter.
“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,” Meta spokesperson Christopher Sgro told TechCrunch. “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.”