One of Sydney’s largest councils joins ban on ‘pervert’ glasses at local swimming pools
Guardian AU
•Tue, 15 Sep 2026 09:38:00 GMT
📰 What Happened
On the evening of Tuesday 15 September 2026, Canterbury-Bankstown council voted overwhelmingly to ban AI smart glasses at its public swimming pools, joining the City of Brisbane, the City of Yarra and Randwick council. Mayor Bilal El-Hayek told councillors that locals had raised concerns about 'perverts and paedophiles' secretly filming in change rooms, pools and around schools, and described the devices as 'pervert glasses'. The article notes reports since the glasses were released of women being filmed without their consent and their interactions with a glasses-wearing influencer posted to social media. Brisbane became the first Australian council to publicly announce such a ban, covering its 21 public pools, and Yarra in inner Melbourne voted last week to ban smart glasses from its leisure and aquatic facilities, childcare centres and playgrounds while calling for stronger federal privacy laws. Randwick has installed signage at the Des Renford leisure centre and says anyone wearing the devices will be asked to remove them or leave; the bans do not apply to people with accessibility needs, including vision impairment.
🔍 The Backstory
Camera-equipped smart glasses such as Meta's Ray-Ban models put a discreet, always-available camera on a wearer's face, which makes recording hard to notice and easy to distribute. Councils moved first because public pools, change rooms and playgrounds are places where privacy expectations are high but the practical ability to police filming is low, and because existing state and federal rules were not written with wearable cameras in mind. The eSafety commissioner's office published advice to industry at the end of August urging companies to automatically blur faces and make recording more obvious, while acknowledging the devices can offer real accessibility benefits to blind and low-vision users. Federal Attorney-General Michelle Rowland has not ruled out a ban and wrote to privacy commissioner Carly Kind in August asking that community concerns about the glasses be given priority consideration.
🎯 Why It Matters
The bans test whether local government can close a privacy gap that federal law has not yet addressed, and they set a precedent other councils are likely to follow. Families, women and children who use public pools and change rooms are the group the measures are aimed at protecting, while people who rely on the devices for accessibility are explicitly carved out. The decisions also put pressure on the Commonwealth to finish the next phase of privacy reform and on smart glasses makers to build privacy features in by default. For councils, the practical questions are enforcement, signage and cost, which is why several have settled on a remove-them-or-leave approach rather than a technology-based solution.
On the evening of Tuesday 15 September 2026, Canterbury-Bankstown council voted overwhelmingly to ban AI smart glasses at its public swimming pools, joining the City of Brisbane, the City of Yarra and Randwick council. Mayor Bilal El-Hayek told councillors that locals had raised concerns about 'perverts and paedophiles' secretly filming in change rooms, pools and around schools, and described the devices as 'pervert glasses'. The article notes reports since the glasses were released of women being filmed without their consent and their interactions with a glasses-wearing influencer posted to social media. Brisbane became the first Australian council to publicly announce such a ban, covering its 21 public pools, and Yarra in inner Melbourne voted last week to ban smart glasses from its leisure and aquatic facilities, childcare centres and playgrounds while calling for stronger federal privacy laws. Randwick has installed signage at the Des Renford leisure centre and says anyone wearing the devices will be asked to remove them or leave; the bans do not apply to people with accessibility needs, including vision impairment.
Camera-equipped smart glasses such as Meta's Ray-Ban models put a discreet, always-available camera on a wearer's face, which makes recording hard to notice and easy to distribute. Councils moved first because public pools, change rooms and playgrounds are places where privacy expectations are high but the practical ability to police filming is low, and because existing state and federal rules were not written with wearable cameras in mind. The eSafety commissioner's office published advice to industry at the end of August urging companies to automatically blur faces and make recording more obvious, while acknowledging the devices can offer real accessibility benefits to blind and low-vision users. Federal Attorney-General Michelle Rowland has not ruled out a ban and wrote to privacy commissioner Carly Kind in August asking that community concerns about the glasses be given priority consideration.
The bans test whether local government can close a privacy gap that federal law has not yet addressed, and they set a precedent other councils are likely to follow. Families, women and children who use public pools and change rooms are the group the measures are aimed at protecting, while people who rely on the devices for accessibility are explicitly carved out. The decisions also put pressure on the Commonwealth to finish the next phase of privacy reform and on smart glasses makers to build privacy features in by default. For councils, the practical questions are enforcement, signage and cost, which is why several have settled on a remove-them-or-leave approach rather than a technology-based solution.