Meta Tapped a Pentagon Supplier to Prototype Face Recognition for Its Glasses
Rank One developed long-range face recognition for US Special Operations Command under a government research contract, saying its software could identify a face from as far as a kilometer away. It supports up to 10 million facial templates and remains active. Meta deleted them from the app entirely on June 5, a day after WIRED revealed that the company had quietly built an unreleased face-recognition system, internally called NameTag, into the Meta AI app—the companion software for its smart glasses, downloaded to more than 50 million phones.
- ▪Rank One developed long-range face recognition for US Special Operations Command under a government research contract, saying its software could identify a face from as far as a kilometer away.
- ▪It supports up to 10 million facial templates and remains active.
- ▪Meta deleted them from the app entirely on June 5, a day after WIRED revealed that the company had quietly built an unreleased face-recognition system, internally called NameTag, into the Meta AI app—the companion software for its smart gla
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| Original publisher | WIRED |
| Canonical URL | https://www.wired.com/story/meta-rank-one-computing-face-recognition-smart-glasses/ |
| Publication time | Mon, 15 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-06-15T09:06:32.055Z |
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Dell CameronDhruv MehrotraSecurityJun 15, 2026 5:00 AMMeta Tapped a Pentagon Supplier to Prototype Face Recognition for Its GlassesRank One, whose board includes a former CIA deputy director and a former FBI science chief, supplied face recognition to Meta for internal development of its smart glasses app.Photo-illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty ImagesCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyMeta is testing face-recognition software built by a company that sells surveillance tools to police departments and the United States military, as it explores bringing the technology to its smart glasses, WIRED has learned.The arrangement is documented in a software license, obtained by WIRED, that was issued by Rank One Computing—a Denver-based company that derives…
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