Australia may freeze imports of 'pervert' smart glasses for a year

Camera glasses got so cheap and so easy to misuse that Australia’s proposed answer is to stop them at the border.

The bill

The Greens are introducing a Senate bill for a 12-month freeze on importing smart glasses and other wearable recording devices. The draft carves out accessibility uses, such as devices that aid vision-impaired people. Independent senators David Pocock and Kate Chaney back the move, giving it crossbench weight beyond one party.

The Attorney-General has acknowledged the privacy concerns but has not committed to an import ban.

What triggered it

The price collapse did. Kmart’s in-house camera glasses, priced at 89 Australian dollars, sold out across the country within days, and basic camera glasses now sell for as little as $40. For comparison, Meta’s Ray-Bans start above $330 in Australia.

Critics have taken to calling the cheap devices “pervert glasses” for how easy they make filming people without consent. Electronic Frontiers Australia says misuse is already appearing in gyms and on beaches, and the group wants sales paused alongside imports.

Why it matters

Smart glasses debates elsewhere have centered on social norms and platform policies. Australia is the first Western country where an outright import freeze is going before parliament, a supply-side answer rather than a usage rule.

The economics explain the shift in approach. Regulating behavior was plausible when recording glasses cost several hundred dollars and came from a handful of brands. It looks much harder when secret recording is a $40 impulse buy available at a discount retailer, which is the situation the Senate will now be asked to address.