Camera glasses and the statutory privacy tort: short answers to common questions
Law & Cyber’s previous article on camera glasses and the statutory tort of serious invasion of privacy drew a large volume of comment. The same questions came up repeatedly, and the short answers are set out below. More detailed discussion concerning the elements of the tort, the remedies available, the time limits and the exposure organisations carry are dealt with in full in the original article.
These answers deal with Australian law only. They are general information about the law as it stands, not legal advice, and are not a substitute for advice on a particular set of facts.
Does the new law make it unlawful to film people in public places?
No. Australia has never recognised a general right not to be photographed in public, and the statutory tort did not create one. If it had, every holiday photograph containing a stranger would be a civil wrong sounding in damages. A claim requires several elements to be established together. There must be an invasion of privacy, either by intruding on a person's seclusion or by misusing information about them. The person must have had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the circumstances. The invasion must have been intentional or reckless, and it must have been serious. The plaintiff must also establish that the public interest in their privacy outweighs any countervailing public interest, which is an element of the claim rather than a defence. Ordinary street photography that does not target a particular person is unlikely to meet that test.
Does the new law apply only to camera glasses?
No. The new statutory tort applies to serious invasions of privacy generally. It commenced on 10 June 2025, before these devices became inexpensive and widely available.
What does “serious” mean, and is it a low bar?
It is not a low bar. The test is objective, and looks at the offence, distress or harm to dignity that the invasion was likely to cause a person of ordinary sensibilities in the same position, rather than at how upset a particular individual happened to be. Annoyance at appearing in the background of someone else’s footage is unlikely to qualify. The court also has an express power to enter judgment for a defendant where a claim has no reasonable prospect of success.
What is the difference between being incidentally captured and being singled out?
This distinction is likely to decide most cases, and it is a question of fact and degree. Location is only one of the factors weighed. Others include the technology used, the purpose of the filming, the age of the person filmed and that person’s own conduct. Someone who appears briefly in the background of footage of a landmark is incidental to the scene. Someone who is deliberately framed, held in shot, and whose image is then published has been selected, and is far more likely to have a claim.
How are camera glasses different from CCTV, a dash cam or a phone?
CCTV is fixed and usually signposted. It watches a place rather than a person, and it is generally operated by an organisation with obligations under the Australian Privacy Principles about how footage is collected, held, accessed and destroyed. The occupier can be identified and held accountable for how any footage is used.
A dash cam is mobile, but it is mounted, points where the vehicle points and cannot follow anyone. The vehicle carries a number plate making the owner identifiable.
A phone is mobile and person-operated, but raising it is a visible act. That gesture is how people know to object, move away or agree to be filmed.
Camera glasses have none of these constraints. They are mobile, silent, worn at face height, aimed at whoever the wearer happens to look at, operated by an individual who is not required to comply with the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act, and effectively anonymous in a crowd. Someone wearing them could be invited onto private premises such as the owner’s home without the residents knowing they were being filmed.
Under the statutory tort, the means used, expressly including the use of any device or technology, is one of the matters a court considers.
In Australia, is filming someone without their permission a criminal offence?
Generally not, although several criminal laws can apply depending on the circumstances, including surveillance devices legislation, stalking and intimidation provisions, and image-based abuse offences. The statutory tort is separate. It is a civil action, which means the person affected can sue in their own name rather than waiting for police or a regulator to act. A single incident where there has been a serious invasion of privacy can attract both a prosecution and a civil claim.
Why can recording a person’s voice be an offence when filming them often is not?
In Australia, audio and video are regulated differently. Every state and territory makes it an offence to use a listening device to record a private conversation to which the recorder is not a party. Where the recorder is a party, the position varies across states and territories.
Video surveillance is treated differently again. Those provisions are generally tied to private activities, or to premises and trespass, and three jurisdictions have no general optical surveillance offence at all, so filming in open public areas frequently falls outside them.
When recording video, camera glasses capture both streams at once. The audio may be caught by the legislation even where the vision is not. Communicating or publishing a recording is also regulated separately from making it, in every jurisdiction.
Is the real risk the recording itself, or what happens to the footage afterwards?
The volume of public reaction to these devices suggests that many people object to being recorded by strangers without knowing it is happening, and object more strongly where children are involved.
The surveillance devices legislation reflects that expectation in relation to private conversations and private activities, although it does not extend to all filming in public.
More significantly, camera glasses have much more capability to cause serious harm to a person than, say, a dash cam. A few seconds of footage can be livestreamed, readily posted to social media, matched against a face database, used to generate synthetic intimate imagery, or mined for where a person was and when. Depending on the nature of any publication the person who was photographed could then also be exposed to other harms such as online abuse.
The recording is the entry point. Seriousness under the statutory tort is assessed against the harm the invasion was likely to cause, not against the act of photo capture alone. Where the wearer exposes the person filmed to a serious invasion of privacy by filming then and then publishing that video in a way likely to harm that person they may be at risk of a finding of serious invasion of privacy under the misuse of private information limb of the statutory tort.
What can a person do if they are filmed and the footage is misused?
Litigation is not the only route and is rarely the fastest. The eSafety Commissioner has powers to compel the removal of image-based abuse and adult cyber abuse material. Where the conduct may amount to a surveillance devices or stalking offence, it can be reported to police who have extensive powers to investigate. The statutory tort sits alongside those avenues, and a court can order material to be destroyed as well as awarding damages.
Will anyone actually sue?
Claims are likely to remain uncommon relative to the volume of recording that occurs. A person who wants to sue has to identify the wearer, obtain evidence, act within short time limits and accept costs exposure. The practical difficulty of bringing a claim, rather than the law itself, may prove the main constraint.
Two features of the tort point the other way, however. It is actionable without proof of financial loss, and damages for emotional distress are available without a psychiatric diagnosis. That removes the evidentiary hurdle which might otherwise make claims of this kind uneconomic to run for a plaintiff’s lawyer operating under a conditional costs agreement. Publication, sharing and monetisation of footage also tend to leave a digital footprint.
What is the position when the person filmed is a child?
Age is expressly relevant both to whether there was a reasonable expectation of privacy and to whether an invasion was serious. Time limits also run differently. Where the person filmed was under 18 when the invasion occurred, proceedings can generally be brought up to their twenty-first birthday.
Turning to the person taking the photograph, the tort does not apply to a defendant who was under 18 at the time, which matters at an $89 price point where a significant part of the market is school-aged. That exemption applies only to the statutory tort, however. It does not affect criminal liability, the eSafety removal scheme, school disciplinary processes, or the position of an adult who directs the recording or publishes the material.
Does a recording light mean the person filmed has consented?
Consent, including implied consent, is a defence to a claim under the statutory tort, and wearers will no doubt argue that a person who saw the indicator and carried on regardless consented by implication. No Australian law requires these devices to carry a recording indicator, and as at August 2026 no Australian decision has considered what legal weight one carries. The argument is untested.
The presence of an LED light may be irrelevant in some cases where, for example, zoom photography is used or the person photographed is not looking at the wearer, or where the glasses have been placed out of their immediate field of vision, such as on a piece of furniture.
Can an employer, occupier or school restrict these devices?
Generally, yes. Employers can regulate what staff wear and where, through a personal recording devices policy and ordinary lawful and reasonable directions. Occupiers can regulate what visitors bring in, through conditions of entry, membership terms and signage. Schools can rely on their position as occupier and employer, and on enrolment and behaviour policies, though the basis for a ban could differ between government and non-government schools. These powers are subject to anti-discrimination law, including reasonable-adjustment obligations where a device serves an accessibility function. Organisations may also carry exposure of their own where employees misuse these devices at work, including under the positive duty in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth).
That exposure, including the position on vicarious liability and whether insurance responds, is dealt with in the article.
Should these devices simply be banned?
A prohibition on sale or use is a policy question for Parliament and is unlikely to be resolved quickly. In the meantime, the mechanisms outlined above already operate. Occupiers can exclude the devices from their premises, employers can prohibit them at work, schools can prohibit them in classrooms and school grounds, and venues and event organisers can make exclusion a condition of entry. These powers are not unlimited though: employer directions must be lawful and reasonable, and conditions of entry are subject to anti-discrimination law. That matters here because the same technology genuinely assists people who are blind or have low vision, and a blanket prohibition that makes no allowance for that use is likely to create problems of its own.
For the full analysis
The article sets out the elements of the tort clause by clause, the damages and other remedies available, the time limits, what the reported discovery of facial recognition software in Meta’s companion application means for these devices, and the exposure organisations carry for what their people record. Read the article.
About Law & Cyber
Law & Cyber advises Australian organisations on privacy, technology and cyber risk, and prepares personal recording device policies, multi-jurisdictional exposure assessments, positive duty reviews and board briefings.
Simone Herbert-Lowe, Principal, Law & Cyber. This article is general information only and does not constitute legal advice. If