Meta's face recognition code found on 50 million phones; xAI fights deepfake lawsuit anonymity; Google launches AI call-spoofing defense

Meta has dormant face recognition code called NameTag on more than 50 million phones inside its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses companion app. If activated, the feature would let wearers identify people by matching captured faces against a biometric gallery on the user's device—technology Meta said it abandoned in 2021 after settling biometric privacy lawsuits in Texas and Illinois.

xAI is asking a federal judge to force four people suing the company over Grok-generated deepfake nudes to drop their pseudonyms and litigate under their real names, including one plaintiff who alleges the chatbot fabricated sexual images of her as a child. The plaintiffs say they would drop the suit rather than face harassment and doxing from Musk's online supporters.

Google rolled out a new Android feature this week to counter AI-powered impersonation scams. The feature, packaged with Google Dialer and shipping to phones running Android 12 or later, pings the caller's device for a silent cryptographic handshake and flags fake calls by stripping the contact photo from the screen—but only if both ends are on Google Dialer, leaving iPhones out.

Crypto-tracing firm Chainalysis published an analysis showing the peptide market measures more than $100 million a year and is growing. Some Chinese labs that previously sold fentanyl precursors have switched to manufacturing and selling peptides, a transition Chainalysis believes is designed to cash in on "looksmaxing" hype across social media and avoid law enforcement risk.