Meta is confronting a fresh privacy lawsuit—coming shortly after the company agreed to pay up to $18 billion over the next decade to settle child-safety claims—this time concerning its AI-powered Meta Glasses. The suit alleges that Meta converted footage captured through the smart glasses into training data for its AI systems without adequately disclosing how the data from those recordings was handled. The glasses, produced in partnership with eyewear maker EssilorLuxottica under the Ray-Ban Meta brand, have become one of the most widely adopted consumer smart-glasses products, sharpening the stakes of the dispute for the broader wearables market.

The complaint stems from a lawsuit originally filed in March in federal court in California, alleging that Meta marketed its AI glasses as "designed for privacy, controlled by you," while sending recordings captured by the devices to third-party contractors who could view and label the material for AI development. On August 31, an amended complaint was filed, expanding the case to include people who never bought or wore the glasses but were recorded by them without their knowledge. The bystander framing echoes a long-running debate over consent that dates back to earlier consumer camera devices, such as Google Glass, which drew public backlash over a decade ago for similar recording concerns.

"Even if a bystander notices the Glasses and agrees to be recorded, he or she cannot have consented to the mass amalgamation of their data when the Glasses are in AI mode," the amended complaint read, "including visual recordings that are collected, stored, exploited, and visually inspected by persons overseas, because Defendants have made no effort to disclose these practices to bystanders or to seek their consent."

"I think there is a huge push to improve AI tools by every corporation, especially the largest corporations in the world," said Ryan Clarkson, founder and managing partner of Clarkson Law Firm, who also serves as co-lead counsel in the litigation. "And the way that they believe is the best way to improve their AI is to find more signal, to find more content, more recordings that they can feed into this machine, feeding the beast."

Connecting the physical world

At the core of the case is the way Meta's hardware links the physical world to its AI systems. The glasses combine cameras and microphones with the wearer's perception, letting users ask questions about what they see, identify objects and landmarks, translate information, and capture photos and video hands-free. According to Meta's product website, a capture LED illuminates when the camera is recording, and users can manage or delete photos, videos, and voice interactions through the company's software.

Clarkson contends, however, that the software and hardware together build a "surveillance economy" in which big tech companies are locked in an "arms race."

"It's really about power, and it's about money, and the largest technology companies are barreling ahead with that as their dual focus," he said. "even if it means totally changing the way society functions and who gets hurt as collateral damage along the way."

The lawsuit argues that the privacy assurances Meta gave consumers do not tell the full story. According to the complaint, when users activate AI features, imagery and audio can be transmitted to Meta's servers for analysis and, the plaintiffs allege, ultimately used to train Meta's AI models. The suit specifically challenges Meta's representations that the glasses were designed for privacy and that users remained in control of their data. Human review of user-submitted content is a common practice across the AI industry—Meta itself notes in its statement that its data-review approach "works the same way as many other companies"—but the case tests whether such practices are adequately disclosed, particularly to people who never chose to use the device at all.

"We heard from many people who we'll call non-purchasers or non-users, or in our amended complaint we refer to them as bystanders—people just navigating their way normally through life, who are being confronted with being recorded by users of these glasses, and it even resulted in this term called perv glasses," Clarkson explained.

The allegations first gained traction after a February 2026 investigation by the Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten, based in part on interviews with workers at Sama, a Kenya-based outsourcing company that performed data-annotation work for Meta. Sama has previously been reported to perform outsourced work for major technology companies, and earlier reporting has examined labor conditions in such data-operations roles. According to those reports, workers described reviewing footage captured by the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, including recordings containing highly intimate material. The investigation alleged the footage showed people changing clothes, using bathrooms, and engaging in intimate activity, as well as visible financial and other personal information.

The original complaint cited those reports in arguing that Meta's privacy marketing concealed the existence of a human-review pipeline. It alleged the recordings were routed to Sama workers in Kenya, and that some workers saw identifiable faces despite Meta's purported anonymization measures.

Meta disputes the allegations.

"We disagree with these allegations and will fight them," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to Fortune. "Our glasses help you use AI hands free to answer questions about the world around you. If you use Meta AI, we may review that data to help improve our products and people's experiences—this works the same way as many other companies."

The spokesperson added that the company takes "steps to filter this data to help remove identifying information and to protect people's privacy."

The case remains in litigation, and the allegations have not been proven in court. How courts treat bystanders who never purchased or used a device—rather than the users who agreed to its terms—could shape disclosure obligations for camera-equipped wearables going forward.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.