Will banning smart glasses do anything
Smart glasses are unsettling — but the ban proposed to stop them would leave every phone camera, dash cam, and hidden wearable completely untouched.
The Australian Greens want to ban the import of camera-enabled smart glasses for 12 months and update the Privacy Act to make covert recording a clear breach of the law. The instinct behind the proposal is understandable. A Monash University study found a disturbing number of owners admit to using the devices to secretly record people, including in change rooms and at the beach. The technology is genuinely unsettling, and Australia's privacy laws were written long before any of this existed. But the policy instrument being proposed raises an obvious question: what, exactly, is being solved that is not already either a problem with existing law or a problem that the proposed law cannot reach?
Ubiquitous surveillance was already here before smart glasses arrived
Start with the recording environment Australians already live in. Every large shopping centre is blanketed in CCTV. Every bus and train in a major city has cameras running continuously. Dash cams record footage of pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers without consent as a matter of routine. And somewhere between 21 and 22 million Australians are carrying a smartphone with a camera capable of recording HD or even 4K video, which can be pointed at anyone in a public space at any time. The architecture of ubiquitous visual surveillance was assembled quietly over two decades, and nobody banned it. Some of it is regulated. Most of it is not.
Into this environment, the Greens propose to ban the import of a specific category of device for 12 months. The device category is real and the concerns about it are legitimate. Smart glasses are designed to be worn naturally, so they reduce the visible signal that someone is recording. That is a meaningful difference from a phone pointed at someone's face. But a 12-month import ban does not remove the devices already in circulation, does not address recording done with a phone held low and angled, does not touch the growing market in other covert wearable cameras, and expires after a year regardless of whether the underlying problem has been resolved. It is, at best, a pause.
A legal framework that catches smart glasses but not a phone camera slipped into a gym bag is not a framework against covert surveillance. It is a framework against one brand of it.
The ban would catch the device but not the behaviour
The comparison to dash cams and phone cameras is not a strawman. The Greens' own spokesperson acknowledged it, noting the bill is specifically intended to target covert recording where no one is aware they are being filmed. That is a coherent principle. The problem is that covert recording is already happening at scale with devices this bill would not touch. A person who wants to secretly film someone in a change room has options that do not require a pair of Ray-Ban Metas. A legal framework that catches smart glasses but not a phone camera slipped into a gym bag is not a framework against covert surveillance. It is a framework against one brand of it.
The Monash University research cited in the Greens' release is the most substantive piece of evidence in the proposal, and it is worth taking seriously. If a significant share of owners are using these devices to record people without their knowledge, that is a real harm, not a theoretical one. Schools banning smart glasses from classrooms over deepfake and livestreaming risks reflects the same concern landing in practical policy at an institutional level. The harm is real. The question is whether this instrument reaches it.
The Privacy Act reforms are the part that could actually do something
The Privacy Act reforms attached to the bill have more potential. Making it a clear breach to film, store, or share footage from covert wearable devices without consent, and giving the Information Commissioner and eSafety Commissioner power to investigate and issue penalties, creates at least some mechanism for accountability after harm has occurred. That would be new. Right now, the legal landscape around covert recording in Australia is genuinely patchy, with protections varying by state and significant gaps in federal coverage. A federal standard with teeth would matter.
But those reforms are attached to the import ban as a package, and the import ban is the part that attracts attention and generates the headline. That is a version of the same structural problem we have noted before with the Greens' housing policy: a visible, intuitive intervention that feels like action gets bundled with a quieter reform that might actually do something, and the bundle gets assessed as a single proposition. The ban is the easy part to understand and the easy part to dismiss. The privacy law changes are harder to explain and harder to dismiss, but they will largely be judged by the company they keep.
If the Greens genuinely want to reduce covert surveillance in Australia, the import ban is the least important part of what they have proposed. A durable, technology-neutral federal standard against covert recording, with real enforcement power and meaningful penalties, would survive the next hardware cycle. A 12-month pause on smart glass imports will not.
Sources
Australian Greens — Media Release: Greens to Introduce Law Targeting Covert Smart Glasses
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the Greens' smart glasses bill actually propose?
The bill has two parts: a 12-month ban on importing camera-enabled smart glasses, and amendments to the Privacy Act that would make covert recording with wearable devices a clear legal breach enforceable by the Information Commissioner and eSafety Commissioner. The import ban is temporary; the Privacy Act changes would be permanent.
Why would banning smart glasses not stop covert recording?
A ban on importing smart glasses does not remove devices already in circulation, and covert recording is routinely carried out with smartphones, hidden cameras, and other wearables that the bill would not touch. Someone intent on secretly filming in a change room or at the beach has many alternatives to smart glasses.
Are covert recordings already illegal in Australia?
Protections against covert recording exist but vary significantly by state, and federal coverage has meaningful gaps. There is currently no consistent national standard that clearly prohibits filming, storing, or sharing footage taken without consent across all contexts.
What is the Monash University research behind this proposal?
A Monash University study found that a significant share of smart glasses owners admitted to using the devices to secretly record people, including in change rooms and at the beach. The research is the primary empirical basis for the Greens' claim that the harm is real rather than theoretical.
Would the Privacy Act changes in the bill be more effective than the import ban?
A technology-neutral federal standard against covert recording, backed by real enforcement powers and penalties, would apply regardless of which device is used and would survive future hardware cycles. The import ban expires after 12 months and applies only to one device category; the Privacy Act reforms, if well-designed, would not face either of those limitations.