en.Wedoany.com Reported - Meta has secretly entered into a technology licensing partnership with U.S. facial recognition company Rank One Computing (ROC), integrating the latter's facial recognition and liveness detection technology into Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses. According to documents obtained by Wired, this license allows Meta to use ROC's algorithms, with approximately 80% of the company's revenue coming from U.S. government clients. This collaboration has sparked industry concerns about the boundary between consumer electronics and surveillance technology.
Rank One Computing is not a newcomer to the surveillance field. The Denver-based company has provided facial recognition technology to the U.S. Marshals Service for identifying prisoners without fingerprints during transport, as well as technical support to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Its technology is even capable of recognizing faces from a kilometer away, a capability developed specifically for the U.S. Special Operations Command. ROC's leadership includes former high-ranking officials from law enforcement and intelligence agencies, such as a former head of the FBI's Biometric Division and a former Deputy Director of the CIA.
The license obtained by Meta covers not only facial recognition but also liveness detection, which ensures that the camera captures a real face rather than a photo or mask. The license supports up to 10 million facial templates and remains active.
Rank One Computing was founded in 2015 by engineers who previously built facial recognition systems for Noblis, a nonprofit research organization that has worked for U.S. intelligence agencies, and went public on the Nasdaq in February. Its clients include the U.S. Marshals Service, schools in West Virginia (used to scan faces against a sex offender database), and LexisNexis's Lumen platform. ROC also provides technology to DataWorks Plus and LexisNexis, meaning that police departments across the U.S. indirectly use the same technology as Meta through products embedded by other vendors.
In Europe, regulators are also taking action. The EU has mandated that Meta open WhatsApp to rival AI chatbots, a move indicating European regulators' focus on Meta's surveillance practices. Calls are growing for similar measures to regulate the use of facial recognition technology.
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