Ars Technica AI | April 30, 2026

Meta ended its contract with Sama, a Kenya-headquartered firm that performs data annotation work for Ray-Ban Meta, less than two months after Sama workers reported viewing sensitive, embarrassing, and seemingly private footage recorded by the smart glasses. The workers, who were contracted to review video, image, and speech data to improve Meta's AI systems, said that some users appeared unaware that their glasses were recording. Sama claims that Meta's cancellation of the contract affected 1,108 workers and that the company was never notified of any failure to meet Meta's standards. A Meta spokesperson told the BBC that Meta "decided to end our work with Sama because they don't meet our standards." In a statement shared with Ars Technica, Sama said: "We do not comment on specific client processes or decisions, however, we can confirm that the engagement with Meta is ending. Sama has consistently met the operational, security, and quality standards required across all of our client engagements, and we stand behind the integrity of our work." Since the claims became public, Ray-Ban Meta glasses have faced extra scrutiny, including a class-action complaint filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California and an inquiry from the UK Information Commissioner's Office.

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