Skip to main content
Low reported severity

Ray-Ban Meta glasses owner says Meta AI stored recordings and transcripts of conversations captured without the wake word; Meta says the issue is resolved

In a Reddit post on 13 October 2026, an owner of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses says the glasses captured conversations they were having with another person although they had not said the wake word "Hey Meta" and the setting for responding without it was turned off. The owner says the Meta AI app saved audio recordings and text transcripts of these conversations in their history, that Meta AI never answered, and that they saw the same behaviour on three pairs (second and third generation) after a recent firmware update. A screenshot attached to the post shows the app's voice activity log with stored entries dated 12 October. The owner says Meta Support advised turning off microphone and camera permissions, Wear Detection and automatic updates and deleting voice history, and later replied that recording continued with everything turned off. A Meta spokesperson told Android Authority, as relayed by Futurism, that the issue had been resolved. The owner says they cannot establish whether the recordings were sent to Meta's servers.

AI system
Meta AI (reported)
Occurred
Oct 2026
Reported
13 October 2026
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Received personal information about the person
Reported harm
Other Material Harm
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Privacy · Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts
5 claims: 5 reported. 4 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 1 person

AI system as recorded: Meta AI assistant on Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses (second- and third-generation pairs, per the owner), with recordings and transcripts stored in the Meta AI app's voice activity log

What Happened

The owner's account. In a post in the r/RaybanMeta community on 13 October 2026, the owner writes that their glasses appear to capture conversations while they are simply talking to another person and have not said "Hey Meta". They say the Meta AI app saves audio recordings and text transcripts of these conversations in their conversation history, that Meta AI does not respond, that the setting to respond without "Hey Meta" is already off, and that they have seen the glasses' white notification light come on while speaking normally. They say they first noticed the behaviour after a recent firmware update and saw it on three pairs, including second- and third-generation models.

The screenshot. An image attached to the post shows the Meta AI app's voice activity log for the owner's glasses, described in the app as stored recordings and transcripts of voice activity, with entries dated 12 October. The record does not reproduce the transcribed speech.

Support and follow-up. The owner says Meta Support recommended turning off microphone and camera permissions and Wear Detection, deleting voice history and turning off automatic updates. Later the same day the owner replied in the thread that recording continued with everything turned off, and posted a link to a law firm's page about an existing consumer class action over Meta's AI glasses, urging others to consider joining it.

Meta's response. Futurism reports that a Meta spokesperson told Android Authority that the issue had been resolved and that people can manage, review and delete voice logs of their interactions with Meta AI in settings. The Korean outlet AI넷 relays the same statement.

Limits. Single first-person account. The owner says they cannot establish whether the recordings were transmitted to Meta's servers. The firmware version, the trigger for the activations and what Meta changed are not public. Other owners in the thread describe similar activations; their accounts are not part of this case.

Reported harm

An owner of Ray-Ban Meta glasses says their conversations with other people were captured without the wake word and stored as recordings and transcripts in the Meta AI app (first-person account; Meta says the issue was resolved; transmission to Meta's servers not established).

Outcome

Pending

Meta Support advised the owner to turn off microphone and camera permissions, Wear Detection and automatic updates and to delete voice history. A Meta spokesperson later told Android Authority that the issue had been resolved (relayed by Futurism on 15 October 2026). The owner's reply in the thread on 13 October 2026 says recording continued with everything turned off; the owner's later replies, up to 14 October 2026, do not retract the account, and no later report from the owner is available.

What remains unknown

  • Whether the recordings and transcripts were transmitted to or retained on Meta's servers.
  • What triggered the activations and what Meta says it fixed, and whether a fix reached the owner's glasses.
  • Who the other people in the recorded conversations were and whether they were told.
  • The country, the firmware version and the full period over which recordings were stored.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The owner says the glasses' AI assistant captured their conversations with another person without the wake word and with the respond-without-wake-word setting off, and that the Meta AI app stored audio recordings and text transcripts of those conversations in its history; the attached screenshot shows the app's voice activity log with stored entries dated 12 October. The recording of private conversations into the AI assistant without the owner's intent is the reported privacy harm. Whether the recordings were transmitted to Meta's servers, and what triggered the activations, are not established.

5 claims: 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported The owner says their glasses captured conversations with another person although they had not said "Hey Meta" and the setting to respond without it was off, first after a recent firmware update and on three pairs including second- and third-generation models.

Causal attribution. Owner's own account; the trigger for the activations is not established.

  • reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'My glasses appear to capture conversations even when I am simply talking to another person and have not said'; 'setting is already turned OFF'; 'I first noticed this behavior after a recent firmware update'; 'I have observed the same behavior on THREE different pairs of Ray-Ban Meta glasses, including 2nd- and 3rd-generation models'
Reported The owner says the Meta AI app stored audio recordings and text transcripts of these conversations in their history; a screenshot attached to the post shows the app's voice activity log with stored entries dated 12 October.

Causal attribution. Owner's account and screenshot; the screenshot does not show how each entry was triggered, and transmission to Meta's servers is not established.

  • reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'The Meta AI app saves audio recordings and text transcripts of these conversations in my conversation history'; image attached to the post: 'See, listen to and delete stored recordings and transcripts of stored voice activity'; 'October 12 at 1:14 PM'
Reported The owner says Meta Support recommended turning off microphone and camera permissions and Wear Detection, deleting voice history and turning off automatic updates.

Causal attribution. Owner's account of the support exchange; Meta Support's own record is not public.

  • reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Their response was to recommend disabling microphone and camera permissions, turning off Wear Detection, deleting voice history, and disabling automatic updates'
Reported Later on 13 October the owner replied that recording continued with everything turned off, and urged others to consider joining an existing class action over Meta's AI glasses.

Causal attribution. Owner's replies in the thread; the class action is a separate, earlier proceeding and is not described here.

Reported A Meta spokesperson told Android Authority that the issue had been resolved and that people can manage, review and delete voice logs of their interactions with Meta AI in settings.

Causal attribution. Meta statement relayed by two outlets from one Android Authority report; what was resolved is not stated.

  • futurism.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'a Meta spokesperson told Android Authority that the issue'; 'has been resolved'; 'People can manage, review and delete voice logs of their interactions with Meta AI via settings at any time'
  • ainet.link(opens in new tab) supports · Korean
    '메타 대변인은 안드로이드 오소리티 측에'; '문제가 해결됐다'

Sources

3 sources inspected, from 2 underlying accounts. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-16: the post text, its attached screenshot and the author's replies in the same thread, retrieved through the arctic_shift archive API (HTTP 200) because reddit.com returned HTTP 403; no translation and no human reviewer. The author's username is not recorded. Applies to s1.

Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-16 (HTTP 200); no translation. Futurism relays Android Authority's report, which carries the Meta statement, and quotes the Reddit post; Android Authority itself returned HTTP 403. Applies to s2.

Read in Korean by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-16 (HTTP 200); passages translated by the research agent, no human translator. AI넷 relays the same Android Authority report and Meta statement, so it shares Futurism's source group. Applies to s3.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

The post and the owner's replies name no country or place; a reply labelling a settings screenshot as the US iOS app describes the app version and does not locate the events. No country is inferred.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-16: Published under the 2026-10-06 privacy rule and the public-forum rule as a first-person account, with a screenshot, of private conversations recorded into an AI assistant's history without the owner activating it. Claims are attributed to the owner; Meta's statement that the issue was resolved is recorded, and server transmission is not established.

People described

An owner of three pairs of Ray-Ban Meta glasses (age, gender and country not stated) whose conversations with other people were captured without the wake word; the people they were talking to are not described

People reported harmed in this case

At least 1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

Additional affected people are described without a reliable count.

One person counted: the owner whose Meta AI app stored the recordings and transcripts (own use). The people the owner was talking to were also recorded by the owner's account but are not described or counted. Commenters' similar reports are not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Ray-Ban Meta glasses owner says Meta AI stored recordings and transcripts of conversations captured without the wake word; Meta says the issue is resolved. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-ray-ban-meta-glasses-owner-says-meta-ai-stored-conversation-recordings-without-wake-word-first-person

BibTeX

@misc{2026_ray_ban_meta_glasses_owner_says_meta_ai_stored_conversation_recordings_without_wake_word_first_person,
  title = {Ray-Ban Meta glasses owner says Meta AI stored recordings and transcripts of conversations captured without the wake word; Meta says the issue is resolved},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-ray-ban-meta-glasses-owner-says-meta-ai-stored-conversation-recordings-without-wake-word-first-person}
}

Related cases

Low Character.AI age verification

First-person forum account: a long-time Character.AI user who says they are an adult says the app's AI age verification, run through Persona, kept judging them a minor despite ID photos, answered more than five support tickets only with automated replies, and locked them out of their account

In a public post to r/CharacterAI at 21:47 UTC on 2 October 2026, a person who describes themselves as a veteran user of the Character.AI app says they returned about a month earlier to verify their age, and that the AI verification by Persona assumed they were a minor although they are not. They say they sent photos of their ID, tried desktop and different lighting, and kept getting an error message; that more than five support tickets asking for manual verification drew only replies from automated bots; and that the age verification system has now locked them out of their account. In a reply they say the system should identify people properly instead of "locking it out on permenent basis". A commenter says the same check called them underage. The account is uncorroborated, and Character.AI's and Persona's handling is described only by the poster.

Low Meta AI

Utah: Meta AI's suggested prompts under a mother's Instagram video compiled her young daughters' names, birth details and old photos and her likely home location; Meta said the prompts 'missed the mark' and changed the feature

On 1 September 2026 Kalie Robins, a Utah travel creator, posted a short Instagram video of herself singing in the car with one of her daughters; it was also shown on Facebook. The next day she noticed Meta AI had placed suggested questions under the post, starting with 'Who's the child passenger?'. Clicking the prompts, she said, produced her two daughters' names, birth information, photos and videos drawn from her own and relatives' past posts, including a newborn photo from her mother's account and a picture she believed she had deleted years earlier, and a further prompt, 'Where does Kalie Robins live?', assembled older and newer posts into her likely location. Her 2 September reaction video drew more than 310,000 likes. Meta told reporters the prompts 'missed the mark', 'should never have been generated' and had been fixed, while saying the feature only surfaces information the user can already access; it disputed that a long-deleted photo was used, saying the photo had been deleted shortly before the video and remained briefly visible through a bug. Robins said Meta never contacted her and that the episode left her feeling she had 'failed' her children.

Low Meta AI support assistant

Third parties exploit Meta's AI-assisted Instagram account recovery tool to reset passwords, with account takeovers reported (17 April to 31 May 2026)

Meta announced the rollout of its AI support assistant on Facebook and Instagram on 19 March 2026. Meta's filing with the Maine Attorney General (notice dated 5 June 2026) says unauthorized third parties exploited a vulnerability in its AI-assisted Instagram account recovery tool (High Touch Support) to receive password reset links for accounts they did not own, and the listing gives 17 April 2026 as the breach date and 31 May 2026 as the discovery date. Videos that attackers posted, as described by TechCrunch, 404 Media and Krebs on Security, show attackers asking the assistant in a chat to link a new email address to a target username. Reported victims include the security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who posted that her password was changed without her knowledge, the Instagram account of the U.S. Space Force's Chief Master Sergeant, and the accounts of Sephora and a dormant Obama White House page (TechCrunch marks the last as disputed by Meta). Krebs and the BBC report pro-Iran defacement of some accounts, and TechCrunch reports that some victims were locked out and that short handles were offered for resale. The filing gives 20225 persons affected in total and 30 in Maine, and the notice calls the Maine figure an upper bound. Meta says the tool worked as intended, that a bug in a separate code path failed to check the email address, and (through a spokesperson to Gizmodo) that the failure was not due to the AI agent itself. Meta says it disabled the tool on 31 May 2026, the day it discovered the exploitation.

Low ChatGPT

Adult ChatGPT Plus subscriber says the account was classified as a teen and restricted, and that OpenAI said profiling had to come first; first-person post

In a Reddit post of 11 October 2026, a ChatGPT Plus subscriber who says they are an adult (36, by the post's own account) writes that when OpenAI's age checks rolled out their account was classified as a teen account and put on a restricted account. The poster says they had earlier emailed OpenAI asking for verification options without ID or a photo, received a canned reply about the verification provider Persona, and on escalating to data protection was told they had to be profiled first. The poster says they then cancelled the subscription. OpenAI's Help Center says ChatGPT uses an age prediction system that reads account signals, automatically enables the teen experience when it predicts an account may belong to someone under 18, can get this wrong, and lets adults verify their age to remove it. The account is the poster's own and is not corroborated.

If you or someone you know is struggling, free and confidential support is available. Find a helpline near you at Signpost.