The Limitless pendant had one privacy feature that mattered: Consent Mode, which was supposed to ask people before recording them. The company turned it off by default. So out of the box, the pendant records every voice in the room — your partner, your kids, the barista, your therapist — without asking anyone. Then Meta bought the company, forced users onto Meta's privacy policy, and deleted EU users' data entirely. The one feature that was supposed to make always-listening ethical was switched off before the first pendant shipped. Now Meta owns the technology, and Meta's business model is knowing everything about you. Meta said it blurs faces and protects your data. Workers in Kenya were watching people have sex, go to the toilet, and undress — footage captured by Meta's smart glasses and sent overseas for "review" with broken face-blurring. One woman was filmed changing clothes by her partner's glasses left on a bedside table. She never knew. That footage ended up with a stranger in Nairobi. When the workers spoke out, Meta fired all 1,108 of them. Now Meta wants to build a pendant that records every conversation you have. If Meta can't protect the video from your glasses, it is not going to protect the audio from your pendant.
What they claim: Meta frames the AI pendant as focused on user empowerment and personal memory, with the pendant acting as an "ambient virtual assistant" to improve daily life
What we found: Meta's leaked internal memo reveals "supersensing glasses" with cameras that stay on for extended periods, letting AI continuously track surroundings. The same memo shows Meta planned to launch facial recognition during a "dynamic political environment" — hoping civil society groups would be "focused on other concerns." 75 organisations led by the ACLU demanded Meta abandon facial recognition plans. At RSA Conference 2026, a security researcher used Meta Ray-Ban glasses with commercial facial recognition to identify everyone around him in real time.
What they claim: Meta positions its wearables expansion as a helpful productivity tool — "Wearables for Work" — with the pendant designed to help users "remember conversations, meetings, ideas, and tasks"
What we found: Reality Labs lost $19.1 billion in 2025 on $2.2 billion revenue — nearly $9 lost for every $1 earned. Meta has committed $135 billion in 2026 capital expenditure and aims to sell 10 million wearable devices in H2 2026. Meta's entire $160+ billion annual revenue comes from targeted advertising built on personal data. A pendant that records every conversation generates exactly the kind of intimate behavioural data that feeds Meta's ad engine.
What they claim: The Limitless pendant (now Meta's) was marketed with "Consent Mode" to ensure ethical data capture — detecting new voices and not recording until consent is heard
What we found: Limitless deliberately shipped Consent Mode turned off by default, according to The Verge. The pendant records everyone in earshot unless the wearer manually enables a feature most users will never find. After Meta's acquisition in December 2025, existing users were forced to accept Meta's updated Terms of Service. EU and UK users had their data deleted entirely by December 19, 2025.
What they claim: Meta assures users that "data security protocols will be rigorously upheld" for its wearable devices with privacy protections including face blurring and anonymisation
What we found: A March 2026 class action lawsuit (Bartone et al. v. Meta) revealed that footage from Ray-Ban Meta glasses was routed to workers at Sama in Nairobi, Kenya, who reviewed footage including nudity, sex, toilet use, and bank details — without consistent face blurring. In one case, a man left his glasses on a bedside table; his partner undressed without knowing it was recording; that footage was sent to workers in Kenya. Meta then fired all 1,108 Sama workers. The UK ICO and Kenya's Data Protection Commissioner both opened investigations.