Kmart's $89 Camera Glasses Sold Out Across Australia. Privacy Experts Are Alarmed.

Key points

• Kmart Australia sold out of Anko-branded camera glasses, priced at AUD $89, both in stores and online as of Monday.
• The glasses look like ordinary black-rimmed frames but can capture still images and record high-definition video.
• A digital rights expert described the product as a "privacy nightmare" because bystanders have no way to know they are being filmed.
• No Australian federal law currently requires a private individual to tell someone they are recording them in a public place.
• The glasses are a low-cost alternative to Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, which sell for several times the price.

For less than ninety dollars, anyone in Australia can now own a pair of glasses with a built-in camera capable of recording high-definition video. The catch: the glasses look completely normal. There is no obvious lens, no indicator light visible to a bystander, nothing to signal that the person wearing them is filming.

Kmart Australia's Anko-branded smart glasses, which carry a clear lens and a plain black rim, sold out at stores across the country and on the retailer's website as of Monday. Guardian Australia first reported the sellout.

Should ordinary people be worried?

Yes, in practical terms. A digital rights expert quoted in the original reporting called the situation a "privacy nightmare," because anyone nearby can be filmed without ever knowing it.

Conventional cameras, phones held up to record, and even dashcams give bystanders some visual cue. Glasses do not. A person sitting across from you on a train, standing behind you in a queue, or walking past you in a park could be recording your face, your conversation, or your surroundings without any outward sign.

The product is not illegal to sell. That is precisely the problem.

What does Australian law actually say?

Australia's privacy framework was not written with always-on wearable cameras in mind. At the federal level, the Privacy Act 1988 governs how organisations handle personal data but places few direct obligations on private individuals filming other private individuals in public spaces. State-level surveillance laws vary, and most were drafted long before consumer recording hardware became this small and this cheap.

No regulation currently forces a private buyer of these glasses to disclose to bystanders that recording is taking place. That gap is not new, but a product selling at a mass-market price point in a major discount chain brings it to a much wider audience than, say, a niche spy-gear website.

What can people do about it?

There is no reliable way to detect whether someone nearby is wearing camera glasses. That is an honest answer, and it matters.

What is practical: if you are in a situation where filming would be harmful, such as a medical appointment, a legal consultation, or a private meeting, you can ask participants to remove eyewear, just as some settings already ask people to silence phones.

Advocacy organisations focused on digital rights have been pushing for an update to Australia's privacy laws that would cover exactly this kind of consumer hardware. The Anko sellout will likely add pressure to that conversation, though any legislative response would follow a rulemaking process that takes months to years.

The broader lesson is familiar to anyone who tracks how regulation chases technology: the product arrived before the rule did.

Common questions

Are these glasses illegal to buy or wear in Australia?

No. Selling and buying the glasses is legal. Whether recording a specific person in a specific context crosses a legal line depends on state law and circumstance, but simply owning the glasses is not an offence.

How is this different from someone filming on a phone?

A phone held up to record is visible. These glasses are designed to look like ordinary eyewear, so the person being filmed has no reasonable way to notice or object in the moment.