David James Olney
7 October, 2026
Every day, I use my smart glasses to describe the path in front of me. They help me make sense of my surroundings and feel confident about where I am going. I also use them to read menus and documents, so I can participate in ordinary life without always having to ask somebody else for help.
That is a rather different picture from the one you might get if you only encountered smart glasses in a conversation about covert recording. The camera that can be misused to invade somebody’s privacy is also the camera that can turn visual information into words for me. The technology presents a real problem of design and conduct. A ban that treats every wearer as a potential offender would create another problem for people who depend on it.
This is why I support See Differently’s Voice for Vision campaign and its petition to protect smart glasses for people with disabilities. They are asking decision makers to consider accessibility alongside privacy, safety and security. That sounds to me like the beginning of a better question: how do we prevent harmful uses of smart glasses while preserving the uses that give people more independence?
For a blind or visually impaired person, a wearable camera can be a way of accessing information that sighted people receive almost without noticing. A sign tells you where to go. A menu lets you decide what you want. A document gives you the chance to read and respond on your own terms. When a device describes that information aloud, it is doing much more than entertaining its owner with a clever AI trick.
The camera does not make my judgement unnecessary, and I would not ask an AI description to replace my cane or my other mobility skills. It gives me another source of information to interpret. That distinction matters because independence is seldom a matter of doing everything alone. It is having more useful information, more choices, and more control over when to seek help.
See Differently shares Michael Hutchison’s experience of using his glasses to read signs and menus, identify objects and connect with assistance. His example is not a promise that every pair of glasses will work perfectly in every situation. It does show what is at stake when a rule written around one use of a device ignores another. A person might be told to remove the very tool that helps them understand the place they have just entered.
Privacy concerns deserve equally serious attention. People should not have to wonder whether they are being filmed in a changing room, at a pool, or during a vulnerable moment. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has described how the ordinary appearance of smart glasses can make recording difficult to detect, and has argued for clearer recording indicators, safeguards against tampering, and other protections built into the technology. Those are concrete design questions for manufacturers and regulators, as well as questions of conduct for wearers.
The policy question is already close to home. On 22 September, Adelaide City Council asked its administration to review the use and misuse of smart glasses in Council controlled places, including the Park Lands, with possible restrictions or a complete ban in view. An amendment that would have required the review to consider disability and accessibility and protect assistive use was lost on the Lord Mayor’s casting vote. The Council has commissioned a review; it has not enacted a complete ban. That makes this the right moment to improve the terms of the discussion.
Blind Citizens Australia has urged parliamentarians to address covert recording while protecting clear, workable exemptions for accessibility. It also makes an important point about the way assistive technology develops: a mainstream consumer product can become a vital disability tool. If an exemption only covers products labelled as disability equipment, it may fail the people who use ordinary glasses, phones or apps in extraordinary ways.
I think a sensible policy would begin with the harmful behaviour and the setting. Protect privacy in sensitive spaces. Make non-consensual recording and distribution harder, and enforce rules against misuse. Require unmistakable recording signals and better controls over what images are kept or shared. Where a restriction is genuinely necessary, write an explicit, usable exception for assistive functions and work out with disabled people how staff will recognise and apply it respectfully. A policy that exists on paper but leaves somebody arguing for access at the door has not solved the problem.
That last point is why consultation matters before rules harden into routine. Venue managers, councils, legislators and technology companies need to hear from people who use these devices, and from people concerned about being recorded. Their interests are not helped by pretending that one group’s experience cancels the other’s. Better design and better rules can protect both, although getting the details right will take care and revision.
See Differently has made it easy to help. Please sign and share the Voice for Vision petition. Visit the Voice for Vision page for a letter template to contact your representatives, a way to share your experience privately, and campaign resources you can pass on. If you are in Adelaide, the campaign is gathering on White Cane Day, Thursday 15 October, from 10 am to noon on the steps of Parliament House on North Terrace.
When you contact a decision maker, ask for something specific: protect people from covert recording, and make sure any smart glasses policy explicitly preserves their use as an accessibility tool. Ask how the rule would work for a person entering a café, council facility or public event with glasses that help them read and navigate. The answer to that everyday question will tell us more about the quality of the policy than a reassuring general statement.
For some of us, smart glasses are already part of how we meet the world. We can take privacy seriously, insist on responsible technology, and keep that world open. Let’s be smart enough to do all three.
Sources: Voice for Vision; Adelaide City Council decision, 22 September 2026; Blind Citizens Australia, 28 August 2026; eSafety Commissioner, Smart glasses and online safety.