Meta says it has fixed a bug that led some Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses to record and transcribe conversations their owners had not asked them to capture. “This issue has been resolved,” the company told Android Authority, and that is nearly all it has said.
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The company has not explained what went wrong, how many people were affected, or what became of the audio. Those gaps are the story as much as the fix.
What owners reported
The reports began on Reddit’s r/MetaGlasses community, where an owner described finding saved audio and text transcripts of conversations that had not been triggered by the “Hey Meta” wake phrase. As ChannelNews reported on October 16, the original poster said it happened on three pairs, including second- and third-generation Ray-Ban Meta models, and other owners later described similar behavior.
The detail that gives the story its edge is the setting. Malwarebytes, in a post by Pieter Arntz dated October 20, said the Reddit owner reported the recordings happened even with the “Respond without Hey Meta” option disabled, and that the problem began after a firmware update. The owner also said the indicator light sometimes came on during ordinary conversation.
Malwarebytes also relayed what the owner said Meta Support told them, which the company has not verified: disable microphone and camera permissions, turn off Wear Detection, delete voice history and switch off automatic updates. Advice to stop updating is notable given that the owner tied the problem to a firmware update in the first place.
What Meta has and has not said
The Privacy Guides report of October 17 quotes Meta responding to Android Authority: “This issue has been resolved.” The company added that people can manage, review and delete voice logs of their interactions with Meta AI through settings at any time.
That is a fix announced, not a fix explained. TechRadar, in an article dated October 14, noted that no named spokesperson is cited and that Meta had not said what caused the behavior. Privacy Guides said the exact date the bug started or ended, the number of users affected and the precise name of the setting are all unknown.
ChannelNews added that owners cannot fully disable audio capture while keeping every voice assistant feature, which is why some Reddit users turned off voice activation altogether. That trade-off means the “setting” at the center of the bug was one of several controls that govern when the microphone listens, not a single master switch.
The outside reporting is also thin on proof. The original account came from a single Reddit poster, with corroboration from others in the thread, and no outlet has independently reproduced the fault.
The explanation Meta has not confirmed
TechRadar pointed to Meta’s own privacy notice, which says voice services can be “inadvertently” activated and that some recordings may be reviewed by Meta staff to improve those services. The outlet suggested that might explain what owners saw, but it stressed that Meta has not confirmed that link.
Meta’s help page also says Meta AI on the glasses may remember details from conversations to give more personalized responses. Privacy Guides added that Meta announced in September that its “Private Processing” confidential-computing system would come to Meta AI glasses, and said that as far as its author could tell it had not yet rolled out.
The sequence of coverage is short. TechRadar’s piece ran October 14, ChannelNews followed on October 16, Privacy Guides on October 17 and Malwarebytes on October 20, and in each Meta’s position stayed the same single sentence. No later statement has added a cause, a date or a count.
The incident lands on a product already carrying a reputation problem. Privacy Guides noted earlier controversies, including reports that glasses footage was sent to workers for annotation and that people used the devices to film others covertly. The capture LED, it said, has no off switch.
What owners can check
The voice history is reachable in the Meta AI app under Glasses, then Device settings, then the glasses’ name, and then Glasses privacy and the Voice activity log. Malwarebytes recommends reviewing that log, deleting anything unrecognized and keeping the app and glasses updated, because updates may carry privacy fixes. It also cautions against relying on the “Respond without Hey Meta” setting alone, since the affected owner had it disabled, and advises asking before recording other people. TechRadar reported that turning off voice activation for the AI appeared to stop the problem, though that also disables the assistant.
For owners the unanswered question is retention. If the glasses captured audio they were never asked to, the transcripts sat in a voice history that Meta says people can delete, but the company has not said what happened to the underlying recordings or whether staff reviewed any of them.
The Ray-Ban Meta product page describes the glasses’ voice features, but it does not answer the central question. Until Meta says what triggered the recordings and what changed, “resolved” remains a company assurance that outside researchers have yet to test.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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