Pressure on federal government grows as another council bans ‘pervert’ glasses

Another major local government area has banned “pervert” smart glasses from its swimming pools as pressure grows on the federal government to bring in national restrictions.

The City of Sydney on Monday joined the councils of Canterbury-Bankstown, Brisbane and Melbourne’s Yarra in banning the devices from pools amid fears about privacy and secret recording.

City of Sydney Greens councillor Matthew Thompson, who put the ban forward, said cheap wearable devices such as smart glasses were flooding the market.

“If you feel like someone’s always watching you, it’s because they are,” he said.

“Overseas we’re seeing women being targeted and harassed in public and recorded without their consent. We don’t want what’s happening in the US to happen here.

“That’s why we’re banning smart glasses and other wearable recording devices from all of our pools, gyms, childcares, libraries and other Council spaces.”

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The glasses, such as the Ray-Ban Metas, are becoming increasingly common and may look very similar to normal sunglasses, with only a small LED to indicate when they’re recording.

They’re often sold on their AI abilities but have become popular among content creators as hands-free recording devices.

The City of Sydney, which is not the city’s most populous LGA but encompasses the CBD and several inner suburbs, will include carve-outs for people with disabilities. 

The move came days after Canterbury-Bankstown Mayor Bilal El-Hayek, whose LGA is the city’s largest, referred to AI smart glasses as “pervert glasses”.

“Chat groups, Facebook, local community forums, and TikTok are just some of the apps – the online platforms where women are venting their concerns over the smart technology that threatens both safety and privacy,” he said, as the council banned the devices from all leisure and aquatics facilities.

“The biggest concerns are around pervert paedophiles secretly filming in change rooms, swimming pools, and around schools. 

“They are preying on our young and most vulnerable. You'd be naive to believe that these creeps are not using other devices to record their unsuspecting targets.”

Digital Rights Watch called the glasses a “tool for gendered harassment, not a gadget”.

“This danger is already playing out,” the digital advocacy group wrote in August.

“Misogynist men are using camera glasses to covertly film women in public for social media clout and to feed the deepfake porn engines that have turned non-consensual sexual imagery into an industry. 

“This is the reason people buy them, not a side effect of the technology.”

Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher has asked for advice on whether smart glasses can be banned from public service and Commonwealth workplaces but there’s appetite for broader reform.

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“Smart glasses can raise legitimate privacy and security concerns, particularly because of their ability to record and capture information,” she said last week.

“We need clear and consistent guidance for public servants.”

Thompson joined calls from Yarra and Brisbane for the federal government to act but went further by calling for a full import ban on the devices.

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland raised concerns about smart glasses last month, noting it could be difficult for people to tell when someone wearing them was recording.

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has urged manufacturers to make recording more obvious and consider automatically blurring the faces of people captured by the devices.

The federal government has been on the forefront of pushing for regulation of social media networks. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is calling for global guardrails on AI while in the US for the United Nations General Assembly this week.