Meta tightens privacy policy around Ray-Ban glasses to boost AI training

Meta is making a few notable adjustments to the privacy policy for its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. In an email sent out on April 29th to owners of the glasses, the company outlined two key changes. First, “Meta AI with camera use is always enabled on your glasses unless you turn off ‘Hey Meta,” the email said; the latter refers to the hands-free voice command functionality.

That said, spokesperson Albert Aydin tells The Verge “the photos and videos captured on Ray-Ban Meta are on your phone’s camera roll and not used by Meta for training, including photos or videos captured by using the ‘Hey Meta, take a photo/video’ voice command. If you share those photos to a product — for example, Meta AI, cloud services or a third-party product — then the policies of that product will apply.“

Second, Meta is taking after Amazon by no longer allowing Ray-Ban Meta owners to opt out of having their voice recordings stored in the cloud. “The option to disable voice recordings storage is no longer available, but you can delete recordings anytime in settings,” the company wrote. In its voice privacy notice, Meta states that “voice transcripts and stored audio recordings are otherwise stored for up to one year to help improve Meta’s products.” If the company detects that a voice interaction was accidental, those recordings are deleted after a shorter 90-day window.

The motivation behind these changes is clear: Meta wants to continue providing its AI models with heaps of data on which to train and improve subsequent results. Some users began noticing these policy changes in March, but at least in the United States, Meta says they went into effect as of April 29th.

Earlier this month, the company rolled out a live translation feature to the Ray-Ban Meta product. And just yesterday, Meta rolled out a standalone Meta AI app on smartphones to more directly compete with Open AI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and other AI chatbots.

The company is reportedly planning a higher-end pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses for release later in 2025. The current glasses lineup starts at $299, but the more premium version could cost around $1,000. Meta is set to report its Q1 2025 earnings later on Wednesday, and the company is likely to address the tariff chaos that has roiled markets in recent months.

Update April 30th, 6:00PM ET: The article has been updated to clarify details and with a statement from Meta.