Meta, the social media giant, is testing a new facial recognition technology for its smart glasses from a supplier who also builds defence tech for the US military. The company has reportedly obtained a license to use facial-recognition technology from a supplier named Rank One Computing, which includes testing for face recognition and liveness detection, which detects whether the camera is looking at a real, live person rather than a photo, video, or mask.

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What does Rank One Computing do?

According to a Wired report, Rank One Computing is a Denver-based facial-recognition company that makes about 80% of its revenue from government customers, which includes the U.S. military and law-enforcement agencies. The company is led by a former head of the FBI's biometric database program, and it consists of several former CIA, FBI, and Pentagon officials on its board of directors. The firm completed its Nasdaq listing in February 2026.

Meta’s facial recognition tech for smart glasses

Now, it is the first publicly known evidence that Meta had a business relationship with Rank One. As per the licenced deal, the defence tech company is providing a very large database, which is up to 10 million facial templates. 

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The report further highlighted that the traces of Rank One Computing's facial-recognition technology were found inside the Meta AI app. While the code was not active, there was no evidence that the app was actively scanning users' faces or identifying people.

Meta also consisted of its in-house facial-recognition system, called NameTag, within the Meta AI app, but now there are no traces of both the Rank One-related components and the NameTag system on the app, as per the report. Therefore, it is unclear what the company is planning, and Meta is testing the feature in the US laws and regulations.