The Harvard students who did this with PimEyes and Ray-Bans in 2024 proved the tech already works. What Meta is actually doing here isn't building facial recognition, it's removing the friction. Right now you need technical knowledge and a third-party service to pull this off.

Meta is turning it into a feature you get for free with your glasses. That's the pattern with surveillance tech. It starts as something only motivated actors bother doing, then it gets productized and suddenly everyone has it. The quote about launching while civil society groups are distracted is just them saying the quiet part out loud.

NYT Link: https://archive.ph/xAtyG

"We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns"

Why would they ever make this statement, there's nothing to gain with that right?

"We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns."

Holy fucking yikes.