Violence against Women and Girls: Smart Glasses Debate
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Pete Wishart
Main Page: Pete Wishart (Scottish National Party - Perth and Kinross-shire)Department Debates - View all Pete Wishart's debates with the Home Office
Violence against Women and Girls: Smart Glasses
Pete Wishart Excerpts(2 days, 11 hours ago)
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Shockat Adam
I agree wholeheartedly with that. We cannot leave this issue to good will; it belongs in the law. I do not believe in a blanket ban, as it would punish the disabled people who benefit most. The RNIB is right that blind and partially sighted wearers already fear hostility from people who cannot tell they have sight loss. However, no ban should not mean no action.
I ask the Minister to consider the following: putting a statutory duty on manufacturers to provide a clear, tamper-proof recording indicator and making it an offence to turn that off or sell products designed to defeat it. Secondly, we need to close the gap in the criminal law so that covert sexualised filming and posting it for whatever reason is clearly an offence, and bring the intimate image provisions of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 fully into force without delay. Thirdly, we must give survivors a fast and affordable route to redress, as the Women and Equalities Committee recommended. Fourthly, we must protect accessibility for those who need to use the technology for assistive purposes, as they should not be penalised. Fifthly, if we are not already, we need to collect national data on covert filming offences and include smart glasses and other sensing wearables in the violence against women and girls action plan. My profession has a part to play, too.
We are told that the harms of social media were unforeseeable; these harms are not. They are right in front of us—quite literally at our eye level. Let us act on this issue before it is too late.
