The recent rise of smart glasses on the market has experts concerned that policymakers will fail to keep up with new technologies to mitigate harm. With instances of deepfake image-based abuse on the rise, the threats posed by the democratisation of AI are tangible.
The recent rise of smart glasses on the market has experts concerned that policymakers will fail to keep up with new technologies to mitigate harm. With instances of deepfake image-based abuse on the rise, the threats posed by the democratisation of AI are tangible.
The new wave of smart glasses, such as those made by Ray-Ban in collaboration with Meta, incorporate AI assistance and recording technology into the design of glasses and sunglasses, allowing the user to film what they see in real time.
Dr Stephanie Wescott is a Monash University scholar who specialises in the impact of emerging technologies and social media on women and girls. She said that smart glasses “have the potential to expand existing forms of gendered harassment by making covert recording and image capture easier and harder to detect.”
Dr Wescott’s research focuses on combatting the impact of online misogyny on children and young people, particularly amidst the rise of “manosphere” content. According to a UNICEF, ECPAT and INTERPOL study across 11 countries, at least 1.2 million children disclosed having had their images manipulated into sexually explicit deepfakes in the past year, resulting in new legislation across many jurisdictions. However, smart glasses exacerbate the potential for harm.
“We already know that girls and women experience image-based abuse, sexual harassment and misogynistic behaviour in educational settings,” she said. “If schools don't proactively consider how these devices could be misused, they risk creating new opportunities for surveillance, humiliation and abuse that disproportionately affect girls, women and gender-diverse students.”
Just as was done with smart phones and social media usage, “schools should be reviewing policies around privacy, consent, recording, AI-enabled technologies and acceptable device use,” Dr Wescott said, “policy needs to keep pace with technological change if schools are to remain safe learning environments.”
“Waiting until serious incidents occur would be a mistake.”
As well as educational spaces, the dissemination of this technology poses issues of consent and privacy in public spaces, areas of legislation that are already under scrutiny following recent developments in AI.
Australian Privacy Commissioner, Carly Kind, said that the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) is taking the risks of wearable surveillance technologies seriously, as Australians’ privacy concerns “have only increased in the last five years”, according to the OAIC’s 2026 Australian Community Attitudes to Privacy Survey.
Recent amendments to the Privacy Act, including the addition of a new statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy, would likely fall short of preventing smart glasses use in public spaces.
Under Victoria’s Surveillance Devices Act 1999, covert audio recordings without explicit consent from every party involved are prohibited, but video-only footage is not covered by the Act. This raises concerns for children in public spaces who are not protected from being covertly filmed by current policies and legislation.
The Ray-Ban Meta glasses run a retail cost of $337 minimum, but affordable smart glasses are appearing on the market as well. Kmart Australia sells its own pair of smart glasses for $89. The glasses allows users to capture photos, record videos, make hands-free calls, as well as use image recognition and chat features via their HeyCyan companion app. These affordable smart glasses are currently sold out on the Kmart website and in stores across the country.
Kmart's camera glasses have quickly sold out, offering a more accessible and cheaper alternative. Image source: Kmart Australia
Last week, a petition was put before the Federal Parliament asking the House of Representatives to ban the sale, promotion and public use of AI smart glasses with recording or facial-recognition capability. The petition, which currently sits at 8843 signatures, directs the House to:
- amend the Online Safety Act 2021 to prohibit use of smart glasses in public spaces, schools, early learning centres, healthcare settings, workplaces and places of worship;
- enact a statutory tort of serious invasion of privacy, as recommended by the Australian Law Reform Commission;
- legislate bystander-facing consent, transparency and data-flow disclosure requirements for any device capable of covert audiovisual capture; and
- establish a parliamentary inquiry into Meta's offshore data-annotation pipeline and its compliance with the Australian Privacy Principles.
“Surveillance eyewear is no longer a boutique product. It is now a $89 impulse buy sitting on a shelf and the children, parents and bystanders captured by it never consented,” said petitioner and online safety expert Kirra Pendergast.
Image source: Hunter Abrams