Meta addresses privacy concerns

At its Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, Meta announced plans to add Private Processing to Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The feature lets the AI assistant learn about you without Meta accessing your data.

What Private Processing does

Private Processing enables AI cloud processing that protects data from all outside parties, including Meta itself. For smart glasses, it could enable private chat interactions with Meta's AI assistant, transcriptions and messages.

Already used in other products

Meta introduced Private Processing into WhatsApp and its Meta AI app last year. The service helped enable WhatsApp's Incognito Chat, letting customers use AI services without undermining WhatsApp's end-to-end encrypted secure messaging.

Meta seeks outside validation

Pritam Shah, Meta's director of engineering, said the company is announcing Private Processing before adding more features so it can work with the security community, privacy community and third-party auditors.

“We have the platform ready. We have it working. It's not just a white paper and a blog.”

Meta's privacy reputation problem

Meta has faced years of criticism over user privacy, including months of controversy this year about face-recognition technology and concerns that smart glasses could be used to harm others. Some people have called them pervert glasses.

No timeline yet for glasses rollout

Private Processing is not yet available on Meta's glasses. Shah says the company has not confirmed a timeline for when it will be added or which specific features will work with it, calling them examples rather than concrete features.

“These are examples. These are not concrete features coming, but these are some examples.”