Councillors say locals have been raising concerns about people secretly filming in change rooms, swimming pools and around schools.
One of Sydney’s largest councils has joined the City of Brisbane and the City of Yarra to issue a ban on AI smart glasses at public pools as concerns mount over the potential for predators to exploit the new technology.
On Tuesday evening, Canterbury-Bankstown voted in favour of banning the tech at its pools, with its mayor, Bilal El-Hayek, describing them as “pervert glasses”.
Since their release, there have been reports of women being filmed without their consent and their interactions with a glasses-wearing influencer posted on social media.
Last month, Brisbane became the first council in Australia to publicly announce a ban on covert filming at its 21 public pools amid fears of threats to child safety.
The head of policy at Digital Rights Watch, Tom Sulston, praised the decision.
Yarra in inner-Melbourne followed suit, voting last week to ban smart glasses from its leisure and aquatic facilities, childcare centres and playgrounds.
Randwick council in Sydney’s eastern suburbs has also banned the new technology at the Des Renford leisure centre. In a statement, it said “growing community concerns” about their potential misuse were behind the decision.
The federal attorney general, Michelle Rowland, has not ruled out banning the glasses but has showed how the laws are governing the new technology.
In August, she wrote to the privacy commissioner, Carly Kind, raising concerns she’d received from the community about their uptake and requesting it be given priority consideration.