Smartglasses should automatically blur people’s faces while filming, Australia’s online safety regulator says

Published August 30, 2026 · Category: News

Overview

Smartglasses with cameras can benefit the vision impaired but companies might pit ‘accessibility benefits against safety and privacy’, eSafety says

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Australia’s online safety regulator has urged smartglasses companies to automatically blur people’s faces filmed on the devices, and make it clearer when someone is filming, as the federal government faces pressure to ban the technology.

Details

In advice to industry published on Monday, the office of the eSafety commissioner warned that while smartglasses with cameras, such as Meta’s Ray-Ban, can offer accessibility benefits to low vision or blind people, companies might pit “accessibility benefits against safety and privacy considerations”, and noted there was already a backlash to the technology.

Source

Originally published at www.theguardian.com.

Related Articles

• What Argentina gets right about youth soccer — and what the U.S. gets wrong
• Niger mutiny puts Russia’s expanding role in the Sahel to the test
• Tunisia swelters as power cuts disrupt water supplies