In 2021, Facebook said it was scrapping efforts to build powerful facial recognition software into its then-nascent smart glasses, citing the tech's glaring privacy and ethics concerns.Four years later, as The Information reports, the Silicon Valley behemoth has officially dusted off the effort and is once again working on transforming its wearable smart glasses into a facial recognition-infused privacy nightmare.Meta is working on a feature internally referred to as "super sensing." In super sensing mode, the glasses' built-in cameras and sensors will remain on and recording throughout the wearer's day. It's still probably a way's off due to battery life limitations, but in Meta's imagining, it'll one day be able to do things like remind someone to drop by the store and get dinner ingredients or nudge them to grab their keys. (Because, of course, every Silicon Valley CEO really just wants to build J.A.R.V.I.S. from the "Iron Man" franchise.)However, the super sensing feature would also combine AI with facial recognition, according to the Information — a design choice that could have far-reaching and deeply alarming implications.Infusing facial recognition and AI into smart glasses could help you look up the LinkedIn heads you ran into at a networking event, or keep track of your roommates or family. Which — while annoying and creepy — are arguably a bit more mundane in the grand scheme of facial recognition applications.But the nightmare scenarios are endless. A wearer could dox strangers on the street; a creep in a bar could look up the name and personal information of a woman who may or may not have wanted to talk to him; undercover law enforcement officials could go to a peaceful protest and keep a careful record of attendees.It's not exactly hard to come up with ways this could go wrong, fast — and yet Meta, it seems, has decided to push forward.According to the report, Meta's renewed facial recognition efforts are due in part to a more surveillance-friendly political climate where privacy concerns are increasingly taking a backseat in corporate and federal government decision-making."The pendulum swings from one side to the other," Rob Leathern, a privacy expert and former product manager at Facebook and Google, told The Information. "We're kind of on that swing where some of the things that companies like Google talked about two, three, four years ago aren’t necessarily being seen as quite as important."More on Meta's smart glasses and facial recognition: Terrifying Smart Glasses Hack Can Pull Up Personal Info of Nearby Strangers in SecondsShare This Article