Monash experts: Policymakers need to act on smart glasses
Left to right: Dr Fareed Kaviani, Dr Stephanie Wescott, Dr Victoria McArthur, Professor Mark Andrejevic
The growing popularity of smart glasses is raising questions about whether Australian laws and communities are prepared for the widespread adoption of the technology.
Monash University experts are available to discuss the privacy, data and societal concerns surrounding smart glasses, and how the technology is likely to affect schools, organisations and public spaces.
Available to comment:
Dr Fareed Kaviani, Faculty of Information Technology
- Public attitudes towards smart glasses
“Smart glasses change the privacy relationship in public spaces. Unlike a phone held up to record, smartglasses can capture photos, video and conversations while looking like ordinary eyewear. People nearby may not know when they are being recorded or where that material will be shared.
“A central issue is consent, as smart glasses make recording faster, more continuous and less visible, meaning existing social conventions around asking permission to photograph or record someone will be much harder to maintain.
“Our research found that owners and non-owners of smartglasses have very different expectations. Owners tended to regard smartglasses as useful, fashionable and consistent with their identity. Non-owners were significantly more concerned about privacy, rudeness, inappropriate use and wearers taking advantage of others. That gap could become a source of tension in workplaces, venues and public spaces.
“Australia should avoid repeating the regulatory lag seen with smartphones. Smartglasses provide an opportunity to establish clear expectations before more advanced or invasive functions such as augmented-reality become commonplace.
“Smartglasses may deliver accessibility, communication and safety benefits, but there should be clear recording indicators, meaningful consent protections, limits in sensitive settings, age-appropriate safeguards, transparent data practices and accessible public guidance.”
Dr Stephanie Wescott, Faculty of Education
Read more of Dr Wescott’s commentary
- Safety of girls and women in schools
- Considerations for school policy
- Existing issues related to online misogyny
“AI smart glasses are not simply another piece of consumer technology. In school settings, they have the potential to expand existing forms of gendered harassment by making covert recording and image capture easier and harder to detect. We already know that girls and women experience image-based abuse, sexual harassment and misogynistic behaviour in educational settings.
“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. Schools have spent the past decade responding to smartphones and social media. AI smart glasses represent the next challenge because they blur the line between ordinary eyewear and recording devices.
“Waiting until serious incidents occur would be a mistake. Schools should now be reviewing policies around privacy, consent, recording, AI-enabled technologies and acceptable device use. Just as importantly, they need to educate students about ethical technology use rather than relying solely on bans. Policy needs to keep pace with technological change if schools are to remain safe learning environments.”
Professor Mark Andrejevic, Faculty of Arts
Read more of Professor Andrejevic’s commentary
- Data and surveillance
“Facebook notoriously developed automated facial recognition software for its smart glasses but held back on implementing it because of backlash. Still, the development of consumer facing facial recognition technology (FRT) is likely inevitable. Smart glasses will be the obvious technology for implementing this. That fundamentally changes our assumptions about anonymity in shared, public spaces. Australia needs dedicated legislation governing the use of biometric surveillance, and FRT in particular, as we are lagging behind the European Union in this regard.
“There will likely continue to be strong public backlash against smart glasses, especially if they are equipped with FRT, and if they can be hacked to allow covert monitoring. The combination of AI with the proliferation of smart camera systems will usher in an unprecedented era of surveillance. We are already seeing this with respect to automated number plate readers. Smart cameras, equipped with object and face recognition, are following close on the heels of this tech.
“We tend to think about smart glasses in terms of inter-personal privacy: ‘is someone recording me without my knowledge or permission?’ Tech companies think about these devices differently: they are an infrastructure for capturing more data about us as we move through the course of our day. The goal is to make data capture in the ‘offline’ world as comprehensive as it is online. Smart glasses, once inevitably networked, become a tool for this type of data collection, and also for collecting the data that will be used to train robots to engage in physical activities. Right now companies are paying people to wear cameras while they go about their daily lives in order to collect data to train robots. Smart glasses would make this type of data capture cheaper and more comprehensive for tech companies.
“Meta and other major players are not particularly interested in accelerating peer-to-peer surveillance: they want all the data for themselves. But one of the ways to get more data is to equip people with smart tech and turn them into roving data sensors. So the strategy on the part of big tech is to crowd-source data collection by equipping us with wearables.
“This is why they continue to push the technology despite multiple failures, such as Google Glass, Apple Vision Pro and Snapchat SPECS. Yes, some of these remain, but they never took off on the scale desired by the tech companies.”
Dr Victoria McArthur, Faculty of Information Technology
- Privacy concerns
“It often isn't clear to users what we are actually consenting to when using glasses like these. According to Meta’s own website, when users take photos or videos with the smart glasses, they are sent to Meta’s cloud to be processed with AI, and that the images would be used to 'train Meta’s AI with the help of trained reviewers'. However, how and when this is happening is not sufficiently outlined in any of Meta’s policies.
“Meta has insisted that users are the stewards of privacy with ads touting, ‘You’re in control of your data and content’. However, a BBC article published in March highlighted how the UK data watchdog has raised concerns that Meta has subcontracted human workers to review content captured with the glasses, including intimate photos and videos, under the mantra of ‘improving user experience’.
“This is about contextual integrity. Privacy simply isn't about whether data is collected; it's about whether information flows in ways people reasonably expect. Meta's policies may technically disclose broad uses of data, but they place the burden on individuals to continuously monitor evolving terms, discover new settings, understand interactions between multiple policies, and opt out where possible. Default settings often change with new features. In effect, maintaining one's privacy becomes an ongoing administrative task rather than a stable expectation.
“There isn't a single solution because we're dealing with two separate issues. The first is where these devices can be used. Australian businesses, schools, healthcare providers and workplaces can already establish clear policies about whether camera glasses are permitted in sensitive spaces, much like many venues have rules around photography or recording. That gives organisations direct control over privacy within their own environments.
“The second issue is much harder because it concerns what happens after images or videos are captured. How long are they stored? Who can access them? Are they used to train AI systems? Those decisions are largely made by overseas technology companies rather than Australian businesses. That's where Australia's privacy regulators and legislators have an important role in setting expectations for transparency, consent and accountability, although enforcing those expectations against multinational platforms remains challenging.”