August 9, 2026
Camera Glasses Shouldn’t Just Be Taken Off Kmart Shelves. They Should Be Banned
There is a growing debate in Australia about camera glasses. This discussion follows Kmart’s release of its $89 Anko camera glasses and a…
By Tim Hawthorne
12 min read
There is a growing debate in Australia about camera glasses. This discussion follows Kmart's release of its $89 Anko camera glasses and a petition asking Kmart to stop selling them. I support this petition, but I believe we are asking the wrong question. The issue isn't just, "Should Kmart take these glasses off its shelves?"
Instead, we should be asking, "Why are we letting everyday people buy technology that enables them to put a camera on their face and record others without their knowledge?" In my opinion, camera glasses should not only be pulled from Kmart. Governments should ban them altogether. I say this not because I'm against technology. I believe technology can be very useful.
Cameras can document wrongdoings. Wearable technology can help people with disabilities. Cameras can provide proof, improve accessibility, and assist in navigating the world. However, some technologies carry such a high potential for abuse that we must draw a line. I think camera glasses fall into that category.
The issue isn't the camera itself. It's the fact that the camera can be invisible. Most of us are used to seeing cameras all around us. We have CCTV in shopping centres, security cameras outside homes, and we all carry cameras in our phones. But there's a key difference. If someone takes out their phone and points it at you, you can see what's happening. If someone stands in front of you wearing what looks like regular glasses, you may have no idea that they are recording you.
This changes the dynamic between the person recording and the person being recorded. Carly Kind, the Australian Privacy Commissioner, has warned that smart glasses could alter people's expectations of privacy. People might be recorded without their awareness. She also noted that current Australian privacy laws might not adequately address this technology. That should concern us all. We've already seen the negative consequences of this technology. This isn't a hypothetical situation. There have been reports of people using smart glasses to secretly photograph and film others.
The current controversy in Australia partly stems from reports of smart glasses used to record women without their consent. The GetUp petition refers to a TikTok creator in the U.S. who filmed women in public with smart glasses and uploaded the footage without their approval.
The concern isn't limited to Australia. On 8 August 2026, The Guardian reported on an Australian man who found out he had been secretly photographed by someone wearing smart glasses. The article highlighted research from the University of Sydney, showing that many videos recorded with smart glasses involved harassment. That is exactly the issue.
We shouldn't wait until many people have been secretly filmed before we decide that this technology needs regulation. Think about where these glasses could be used. Picture someone wearing them at a swimming pool, a playground, the beach, on public transport, in a shopping centre, at school, a nightclub, the gym, or just walking down the street. Imagine having a private moment with your partner.
The person wearing the glasses doesn't need to hold up a phone, point a camera, or announce that they are recording. They can simply look at you, and you may never realise it. Now consider particularly vulnerable situations: What happens when someone walks into a changing room wearing camera glasses? What happens in a public restroom? What happens around children? What happens when someone targets women intentionally? What happens when a stalker uses them to track someone? What happens when someone records an intimate moment without consent? These aren't just made-up scenarios. We know that cameras and recording devices can be misused in these ways. The problem is that camera glasses make the camera much harder to detect. As this technology becomes cheaper, it also becomes easier to access. This is another reason why I think governments need to act right away.
Kmart's Anko glasses reportedly sell for $89. That matters.
The cheaper and more accessible technology is, the more people will be able to get it. The argument that "most people will use them responsibly" doesn't hold when the impact on those being recorded can be severe. We don't judge potentially dangerous technology solely based on how responsible users might handle it. We also must consider the risks when someone chooses to misuse it. Camera glasses offer a very easy way to do just that.
The GetUp petition points out that Meta has already sold millions of pairs of camera-equipped glasses, meaning this isn't some obscure experiment that might disappear.
It is becoming mainstream. That is exactly why governments should be acting now rather than years from now. "But phones have cameras". This is probably the most common response. Yes, they do. But a phone camera is not the same thing as a camera hidden in something you are wearing. If somebody takes out their phone and points it at you, there is an obvious visual signal. If somebody is wearing glasses, there isn't necessarily any reason for you to assume that you are being recorded. The difference is concealability.
A camera being openly used is one thing. A camera that can be operated simply by looking at someone is another. We shouldn't pretend that those two things have identical privacy implications. "But CCTV records people all the time". That's another argument I don't find convincing. CCTV is also subject to rules, policies and legal restrictions.
More importantly, there is a fundamental difference between walking past a security camera mounted on a building and having an individual deliberately follow you around while wearing a camera on their face.
CCTV generally exists in a particular location for a defined purpose. Camera glasses can move with the wearer. They can follow a particular person. They can enter environments where people reasonably expect greater privacy. And the footage can potentially be uploaded, distributed or used for purposes completely unrelated to why it was originally recorded.
The Australian Privacy Commissioner has already recognised that surveillance technologies can create significant privacy risks.
In relation to facial recognition, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has described the technology as presenting high privacy risks and stressed that simply being technologically possible or convenient isn't sufficient justification for its use.
If governments are already concerned about the privacy implications of technology capable of identifying someone's face, surely, we should be thinking very carefully about technology that makes it easier for virtually anyone to record that face without their knowledge.
The law is already struggling to keep up. This is perhaps the strongest reason for government action. Technology moves quickly, while legislation lags.
The GetUp petition emphasises this point: Australia's privacy laws were developed before wearable cameras became common.
The Privacy Commissioner has also warned that current laws may not effectively address the changes that smart glasses could introduce to personal interactions.
This creates a risky situation.
Someone could be filmed today, have that footage uploaded tomorrow, copied thousands of times the following day, and only then begin to figure out which law was violated and what they can do.
That's not acceptable.
Privacy should not depend on whether a victim has enough money, time, and knowledge to seek legal help after the damage has already been done.
What about consent? This is the key principle for me. If you want to take a photo or video of someone in situations where they expect not to be filmed, you should get their consent.
This principle should be especially critical when the footage could be intimate, sexual, humiliating, or personally identifying. The issue with camera glasses is that they make meaningful consent much harder. How can someone agree to being recorded when they don't even know it's happening? A small recording light isn't sufficient. A person shouldn't have to check someone else's glasses to see if they are being filmed. And they certainly shouldn't have to assume that every person wearing glasses might be recording them. That is not a healthy way for society to operate.
This isn't just about women. Much of the current discussion has understandably focused on women being secretly filmed. That issue is important.
However, this problem extends beyond gender. Children can be recorded. Men can be recorded. People with disabilities can be recorded. Those experiencing a mental health crisis can be recorded. Individuals attending medical appointments can potentially be recorded. Private conversations can also be filmed. Anyone can become the subject of a recording without knowing it. Once footage exists, control over where it goes is lost. It can be sent to friends, uploaded to social media, used for harassment, edited, sexualized, identified, or stored indefinitely.
That is a significant amount of power for an ordinary consumer product to hold.
There is another issue: facial recognition and AI. The camera itself is only part of the problem. Modern smart glasses increasingly integrate artificial intelligence and image recognition. This means the future may not just be: "I took a video of you."
It could turn into: "I looked at you, identified you, searched for information about you, and recorded the interaction."
The OAIC recognises facial information and biometric data as requiring strong privacy protections because they can uniquely identify individuals.
We should not wait until wearable AI can routinely recognise strangers before we decide this might not have been a good idea.
Another reason I believe governments need to act is the availability of these devices.
We are not talking about specialist surveillance equipment costing thousands of dollars that requires technical skills to use.
We are discussing consumer electronics sold in regular stores for about the price of decent headphones.
That fundamentally changes the risk.
When a technology is expensive and hard to get, its potential for misuse is naturally limited by accessibility. But when the same technology becomes cheap, mass-produced, and available to almost everyone, the number of people who could misuse it grows significantly.
This includes young people.
A teenager doesn't need to be a hacker or a surveillance expert to use camera glasses. They just need to buy a pair, put them on, and press a button or, depending on the model, give a voice command. This should worry parents, teachers, and schools.
One of the places where covert recording could be particularly harmful is in schools.
Anyone who has gone to school knows that bullying doesn't necessarily stop when the school day ends.
Social media has already changed bullying, enabling embarrassing moments to be recorded on a phone and shared with hundreds or thousands of people in minutes.
Camera glasses could make that even easier.
Imagine a student being targeted by a group of bullies.
Instead of someone clearly using a phone, one of the students wears camera glasses.
They record another student being humiliated.
The victim may not even realise they are being filmed.
The footage is then uploaded to Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, or another platform.
In minutes, something that happened to one student in a single classroom or playground can be seen by an entire school community.
The victim has no chance to say no.
They have no opportunity to stop the recording.
Once the footage is online, they may have little ability to control where it goes. This is particularly troubling because children and teenagers are still growing emotionally and psychologically. A recording that an adult might see as unimportant can greatly affect a young person's life.
Schools are already dealing with cyberbullying and image-based abuse.
Why would we intentionally introduce another technology that makes secret recording easier?
The issue becomes even worse when recordings are not just used to embarrass someone but to control them.
A recording can become a tool for harm.
Imagine a student secretly recording another student in a compromising or humiliating situation.
The recording is then used to threaten the victim:
"Do what I say, or I'll share this with everyone."
That is blackmail.
The same thinking applies outside schools.
Someone could secretly record a person during an intimate moment.
They could capture a private conversation.
They could film someone getting dressed.
They could record someone who is drunk or otherwise vulnerable.
They could then threaten to release that material unless the victim gives them money, performs certain actions, shares additional images, or meets other demands from the perpetrator.
The existence of the recording becomes a way to control the victim.
Camera glasses make it much easier to get that initial recording, as the victim might not realise the camera is on.
This is very worrying in the context of image-based abuse.
Australia has already recognised the serious harm caused by sharing intimate images without consent. But stopping the distribution of an image is only part of the issue.
We should also consider how easily someone can secretly obtain that image in the first place.
The mix of camera glasses and social media is especially dangerous.
The real risk isn't just the glasses.
It's the combination of camera glasses, smartphones, social media, AI, anonymous accounts, and instant sharing.
A person can potentially record someone without their knowledge, move the footage to another device, edit it, add captions, or manipulate it with AI, and share it with an audience almost instantly.
Once something has been copied and shared online, deleting the original post doesn't necessarily erase the harm. Someone may have already downloaded it. Someone might have sent it to others.
Someone may have posted it elsewhere. Screenshots may exist. Copies may exist.
The victim may have no idea how many people have seen it.
This is why I reject the argument that someone can just "ask the person to delete it."
The harm can happen long before the victim even knows the recording exists.
We need to consider children before this becomes common.
This is ultimately why I believe governments need to act now.
We should not wait for camera glasses to become a usual part of school life before asking about their use in bullying.
We should not wait for a student to find out that an intimate or humiliating recording has been made without their knowledge.
We should not wait for a teenager to be threatened with the release of a recording.
We should not wait until parents discover that footage of their children has been captured and shared without their consent.
And we certainly shouldn't wait for a serious incident before deciding that unrestricted access to covert recording technology isn't a good idea.
The question isn't whether every teenager who owns camera glasses will misuse them.
Most won't.
The question is whether we should make it easy, cheap, and socially acceptable for those who do want to misuse them.
I don't think we should.
We already understand how damaging bullying, cyberbullying, sexual harassment, and image-based abuse can be. Providing those who engage in such behaviour with another discreet way to obtain material about their victims is not progress.
It gives them another weapon.
Is there a valid use for cameras in glasses? This is where the discussion gets more complicated. There are valid uses for wearable cameras. They could help people with visual impairments. They might assist with navigation. They could be useful for certain professional tasks. They could help people document events.
They may have accessibility benefits. I don't ignore those possibilities.
But valid applications do not automatically justify unrestricted consumer access to technology that can also enable covert surveillance.
There are many technologies where governments impose restrictions even when valid uses exist. The key question should be whether the benefits outweigh the risks and if those benefits can be achieved through safer options.
For instance, if wearable technology is genuinely needed for accessibility, governments could create strict exemptions or approve specific medical devices instead of allowing unrestricted sales of camera glasses to consumers.
The guiding principle should be that accessibility should be prioritised, but covert surveillance should not be allowed. We shouldn't wait for a major scandal to act. One of the worst mistakes governments can make with new technology is waiting until serious harm occurs. By that time, the technology may already be widespread. This pattern has repeated itself.
Technology gets released, companies market it, consumers start using it, and then people find ways to misuse it. Victims raise concerns, politicians react, a review follows, and years later, new laws are proposed. By then, the technology has already changed again. Why let this cycle continue? The current debate gives governments a chance to address the issue proactively.
My view is straightforward. I don't think camera glasses should just be removed from Kmart. I believe that governments should work towards banning the manufacture, import, and consumer sale of camera-equipped glasses that allow recording people without their consent. At the very least, there should be strict national laws regulating these devices before they become common.
If a technology can only be used safely if everyone nearby trusts that the wearer isn't secretly recording them, then maybe the issue lies with the technology, not the people.
We shouldn't have to live in a world where every pair of glasses could be a camera. We shouldn't have to question if the person speaking to us is recording. We shouldn't have to look for a small light on someone's glasses that shows they are filming. We shouldn't have to tell our children to assume that anyone wearing glasses might be recording them. Victims of stalking, sexual harassment, image-based abuse, and other privacy violations shouldn't have to wait for years after technology arrives for governments to recognise that the law has not kept pace.
Privacy is not something we should give up just because technology makes surveillance simpler. There comes a point where convenience turns into intrusion. I believe that camera glasses have crossed that threshold. Kmart's removal of one $89 product would be a good first step.
But it's not enough.
Governments need to act before covert wearable surveillance becomes normal.
Because once it becomes normal, taking that privacy back will be far harder.
References and further reading
GetUp — Petition calling for Kmart to remove the Anko camera glasses
Demand Kmart take the Anko surveillance glasses off the shelf
The Guardian — Australian man secretly photographed using smart glasses
Australian Office of the Information Commissioner — Facial recognition and privacy
Is there a place for facial recognition in Australian society?
Australian Office of the Information Commissioner — Privacy risks of facial recognition
Facial recognition technology: a guide to assessing the privacy risks
Australian Office of the Information Commissioner — Biometric scanning
Biometric scanning and your privacy rights
Research — Privacy concerns surrounding camera glasses