At its Meta Connect event, Meta announced plans to bring Private Processing to its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The system, first introduced for WhatsApp last year, is designed to let the glasses' AI assistant handle personalized requests without Meta itself being able to access the underlying data. Meta framed the move as a way to build a hyper-personalized AI while addressing privacy concerns.
Meta's director of engineering, Pritam Shah, said the platform is already working and is not just a concept. He said Meta is announcing it early so it can engage with the security and privacy communities and bring in a third-party auditor. However, no release timeline was given, and Shah described potential uses—such as private chats and transcriptions—as examples rather than confirmed features.
The announcement lands at a difficult moment for Meta, which has faced months of controversy over face recognition and the potential misuse of its smart glasses. By emphasizing privacy, Meta appears to be trying to reposition the glasses as less intrusive, but the company has yet to show how the promise will work in practice.