How to stop Meta training its AI models on your smart glasses' visual data

The setting affects whether workers can review photos and videos from your glasses.

Meta has started to roll out the setting that allows people who use its smart glasses to opt out of allowing the company to use "visual data" collected by the device for AI training. The setting is now available within the Meta AI app.

The company has begun notifying glasses owners about the change with a pop-up in the Meta AI app. "Your Al glasses can translate a menu, identify a plant and more," it says. "You can opt out of providing visual data from these experiences to Meta for product improvement. If you opt out, that data isn't stored after processing."

The notification directs users to the relevant settings page, but you can also find it directly by navigating to the settings for your glasses, selecting "Meta AI" and scrolling down to "store visual data from AI experiences." You'll need to have your glasses out of their case and connected to your phone in order to change the setting. If you have multiple pairs of glasses, you'll need to repeat this step for each pair.

Opting out may prevent you from being able to use certain features with the glasses, Meta says. This includes "visual reminders," like looking at an object and asking Meta AI to remind you to buy it next week. It's not clear if any other features are affected.

Along with the new setting, Meta has also published a more detailed description of how it uses "visual data" in a help center article that explicitly mentions the possibility of human review. "When you use AI experiences on your Meta glasses – like asking about something you're looking at or using live AI – Meta stores the resulting visual data and may use it to power glasses features and improve Meta products," the company explains . "This includes the process of training and improving AI models, which may be automated or manual (human)."

The company goes on to note that it only stores "visual data" collected while using certain AI features, including Live AI. Visual data, the company says, does not include "photos and videos you capture with your glasses when the capture LED is on."