Privacy concerns around smart glasses deserve serious scrutiny. But labelling technology that can transform independence for disabled people as “pervert glasses” crosses a line. The real challenge is to protect privacy while recognising one of the most important accessibility opportunities of the AI era.

For more than a decade, wearable assistive technology has been quietly changing the lives of people with disabilities.

For someone who is blind or vision impaired, technology such as the OrCam MyEye has demonstrated what becomes possible when cameras, artificial intelligence and real time image processing are combined in a device that can be worn.

Printed text can be read aloud. Products can be identified. Faces can be recognised. Signs, documents and information that might otherwise be inaccessible can become available instantly.

Technology can provide another layer of information about the world around us and, in doing so, give people greater independence.

For years, this type of technology existed largely within the world of disability and assistive technology. Most of the general public knew very little about it. There was relatively little public controversy.

Now something important has changed.

Smart glasses are becoming mainstream.

Major technology companies are taking capabilities that previously existed primarily within specialist assistive devices and incorporating them into attractive, affordable consumer products that millions of people may eventually wear.

That represents an extraordinary moment for accessibility.

It also raises legitimate questions about privacy, consent and how society should manage technologies that can see, hear and interpret the world around their users.

Those questions should absolutely be discussed.

But something else is happening too.

The language being used about smart glasses is becoming increasingly hostile.

Terms such as “pervert glasses” have entered parts of the public conversation.

That should concern anyone who cares about disability, inclusion and the future of technology.

Is it acceptable to call assistive technology “pervert glasses”?

No. And we need to understand why.

People are entitled to raise concerns about cameras being present in public places. They are entitled to ask when recording is taking place, what happens to images, where data is processed and what protections exist for people nearby.

Those are reasonable questions. Technology companies should answer them. Regulators should scrutinise them. Society should debate them.

But describing smart glasses as “pervert glasses” does something very different.

It does not criticise a particular privacy feature. It does not challenge a data policy. It does not propose better regulation.

Instead, it attaches a degrading label to an entire category of technology and, inevitably, to some of the people wearing it.

Imagine being blind or vision impaired and using smart glasses to read a restaurant menu. Imagine using them to identify which bus has arrived. Imagine asking them to describe an unfamiliar room. Imagine using them to find a product in a supermarket or understand information displayed on a screen.

Now imagine being made to feel that the device helping you do those things somehow makes you suspicious.

That is the danger of careless language.

The person challenging someone wearing smart glasses may have no idea whether that individual is recording anything. They may have no idea whether the glasses are being used as an accessibility tool. They may not even realise that the person wearing them has a disability.

Not every disability is visible.

This is precisely why public discussion requires some degree of proportion.

We can have strong privacy protections without vilifying the people who use the technology. In fact, we must.

The technology is not entirely new

There is an interesting contradiction at the heart of the current debate.

Cameras combined with artificial intelligence have been used in wearable assistive technology for years. People who are blind or vision impaired have worn devices capable of interpreting visual information without creating widespread public alarm.

So we should ask an important question.

What has actually changed? Is the technology fundamentally different? Or has it simply become more visible because mainstream consumers are now wearing it?

There are, of course, differences between specialist assistive products and mass consumer devices. Scale matters. How information is captured, processed, stored and shared matters. The behaviour of millions of consumers can create challenges that did not exist when a technology was used by a relatively small community.

Those differences deserve serious consideration.

But there is also a risk that the debate overlooks something remarkable.

A technology category that once belonged almost exclusively to specialist disability markets is being absorbed into everyday consumer electronics.

For disabled people, that can be enormously positive.

The mainstreaming of assistive technology

Historically, specialist assistive technology has often faced several barriers.

It can be expensive. It can sometimes be difficult to obtain. It may require specialist support. And, despite the extraordinary work of assistive technology companies, specialist products inevitably operate in markets far smaller than those available to global consumer technology companies.

Mainstream smart glasses change that equation.

If millions of people purchase them, manufacturers can invest far greater sums in software, artificial intelligence, cameras, batteries, processors and product design.

Costs can fall. Capabilities can improve. Updates can arrive more quickly. Developers can build entirely new applications around the platform.

Most importantly, a disabled person may no longer need to wear something that visibly identifies itself as specialist equipment.

They can wear the same glasses as everyone else.

That matters.

True inclusion is not always about creating a separate product for a person with a disability. Sometimes it is about designing mainstream products that are accessible to everyone.

There is a profound difference between saying, “Here is the special device you need because you are disabled” and saying, “Here is a product millions of people use, and it works for you too.”

That is universal design in practice.

We have seen this story before

Many technologies we now regard as completely ordinary have strong roots in accessibility.

Captions help people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, but millions of people use subtitles while watching television in noisy rooms, on public transport or when they simply prefer to read dialogue.

Voice recognition has obvious benefits for people who cannot easily use a keyboard, yet voice assistants and dictation are now mainstream.

Predictive text can support people with particular disabilities but is used every day by billions of smartphone users.

Audiobooks and text to speech technologies have profound accessibility benefits but are used by people across society.

Accessibility repeatedly acts as a laboratory for innovation.

Solutions developed because someone cannot access the world in the conventional way often turn out to make life easier for everyone.

Smart glasses may represent the next chapter in that story.

Consider what they could mean for someone who cannot see

We often discuss artificial intelligence in abstract terms. We talk about models, computing power, productivity and disruption.

For someone with sight loss, the impact can be much more immediate.

Artificial intelligence can become a bridge between visual information and the person who cannot access it.

A pair of glasses may eventually be able to tell someone that the number 46 bus is approaching. It might explain that the entrance to a building is twenty metres ahead and slightly to the left. It could read the handwritten specials on a café blackboard. It might tell someone which of several identical containers contains coffee and which contains sugar.

It could describe the expression on another person’s face. It could help someone navigate an unfamiliar railway station. It could read a letter that has just arrived through the door. It could identify a banknote, a medicine packet or an item of clothing.

None of these tasks appears revolutionary to a sighted person. Many take only a fraction of a second.

But independence is often built from hundreds of seemingly small interactions like these.

The significance of technology should not be measured simply by how impressive it appears in a demonstration. It should be measured by the barriers it removes from people’s lives.

And we are only at the beginning

Today’s smart glasses are early products.

Consider where the technology could go over the next decade.

Artificial intelligence will become better at understanding context. Cameras and sensors will improve. Battery life will improve. Processors will become smaller. Voice interaction will become more natural. Navigation technology will become more precise. Real time translation will become more sophisticated. Computer vision may be able to understand increasingly complicated environments.

The glasses of the future may not simply answer the question, “What is in front of me?” They may understand what the user is trying to achieve.

A person might say:

“Help me find the departure platform for the Belfast train.”

“Tell me when my friend enters the room.”

“Guide me to an empty seat.”

“Read the ingredients and tell me whether this contains peanuts.”

“Find the entrance to the pharmacy.”

“Tell me which shirt is navy.”

“Describe what is happening in this rugby match.”

The difference between answering a question and understanding a person’s objective is enormous.

For disabled people, that could move wearable technology from being an information tool to being a genuine independence platform.

Disability may become one of AI’s greatest use cases

There is understandable anxiety about artificial intelligence.

We should not dismiss it.

AI creates difficult questions about jobs, misinformation, copyright, privacy, security and the enormous influence of technology companies.

But there is a danger that the negative conversation becomes so dominant that we lose sight of what the technology can achieve.

Disability may ultimately prove to be one of the areas where the social value of artificial intelligence is easiest to understand.

For someone who cannot see, AI can describe. For someone who cannot hear, it can transcribe. For someone who cannot speak, it can provide another means of communication. For someone who has difficulty interacting physically with technology, it can allow increasingly sophisticated control through voice, gesture or other interfaces.

That does not mean technology solves disability. Nor does it remove the responsibility of society to make buildings, services, transport, employment and information accessible.

Technology cannot become an excuse for inaccessible design.

But it can be an extraordinary tool for personal independence.

Privacy matters

Supporters of smart glasses also need to resist the temptation to dismiss legitimate concerns.

Cameras worn on the face are different from cameras sitting inside a pocket.

People deserve clarity about when recording is taking place.

There should be meaningful indicators and safeguards.

Manufacturers need to explain what data is collected, how long it is retained, whether it is used to train artificial intelligence systems and who can access it.

Security needs to be treated as fundamental.

Regulators need to remain engaged as the technology develops.

Users also have responsibilities. Owning a piece of technology does not remove someone’s obligation to behave respectfully towards other people.

These debates should happen.

But we should distinguish between regulating behaviour and stigmatising technology.

A camera can be misused. A smartphone can be misused. A computer can be misused. Artificial intelligence can be misused.

The appropriate response is to address harmful behaviour, strengthen safeguards and enforce appropriate rules.

It is not to assume that everyone using the technology has harmful intentions.

That distinction becomes particularly important when some users depend on the technology because of a disability.

We need some empathy in this debate

Before challenging someone wearing smart glasses, consider why they might be wearing them.

The glasses that appear unnecessary to one person may be another person’s eyes.

The camera someone finds uncomfortable may be providing the wearer with information they have never previously been able to access independently.

The artificial intelligence being mocked online may be helping somebody read the birthday card their grandchild gave them. It may allow somebody to travel to work without asking a stranger for help. It may allow somebody to choose their own clothes. It may give a person greater confidence walking into a room they have never visited before.

That does not automatically override the rights of everyone else.

Accessibility does not eliminate privacy. But privacy should not eliminate accessibility either.

The objective must be to protect both.

The next challenge is ensuring nobody is left behind

There is another question we will increasingly need to confront.

If mainstream wearable technology becomes genuinely transformative for disabled people, how do we make sure disabled people can actually access it?

Affordability will matter. Digital skills will matter. Training will matter. Connectivity will matter. The accessibility of the software itself will matter.

Support from governments, health systems, charities, employers and technology companies may all have a role.

There would be a terrible irony if one of the greatest accessibility technologies ever developed became widely available but remained out of reach for the people who could benefit from it most.

This is where the conversation should be going.

How do we maximise the positive impact? How do we create appropriate privacy protections? How do we educate the public? How do we make the technology affordable? How do we ensure accessibility is built into products from the beginning rather than added afterwards? How do we involve disabled people in their development?

Those are much more productive questions than deciding which insulting nickname will generate the most clicks online.

Language has consequences

Words influence behaviour.

Calling smart glasses “pervert glasses” may seem funny to somebody posting online.

But imagine how that phrase feels to a sixteen year old with sight loss who is considering wearing smart glasses to school.

Imagine someone who has only recently lost their sight and is already adjusting to an enormous change in their life.

Imagine someone wearing the glasses at work because they allow them to perform tasks independently.

Would we really want those people worrying that strangers might associate their accessibility device with something shameful?

That is why language matters.

We should criticise technology when criticism is justified. We should demand better safeguards when safeguards are inadequate. We should hold powerful technology companies accountable.

But we can do all of those things without humiliating disabled people.

The future is wearable

Smart glasses are unlikely to be the end of this technological journey. They may merely be the beginning.

As AI moves beyond screens and into devices that understand our physical surroundings, technology will become increasingly integrated into everyday life.

Wearables will understand more about where we are, what we are looking at and what we are trying to do.

That creates risks. It also creates extraordinary possibilities.

For people with disabilities, those possibilities may arrive earlier and matter more.

The future of assistive technology may no longer involve a separate category called “assistive technology” at all.

The best outcome may be a world where mainstream technology is simply designed to work for the widest possible range of human beings.

A world where accessibility is not a special feature. It is simply part of the product.

A milestone worth celebrating

Smart glasses have helped move assistive technology from the margins towards the mainstream.

That is significant.

For perhaps the first time, a technology capable of giving a blind or vision impaired person real time information about the visual world around them could become an ordinary consumer product available from the same shops where everybody else buys their glasses.

We should recognise how extraordinary that is.

We should debate privacy. We should demand safeguards. We should regulate where regulation is necessary. We should challenge inappropriate behaviour.

But we should also recognise the enormous potential these technologies have to increase independence, participation and opportunity for millions of people.

And we should be extremely careful about language that turns an accessibility revolution into something disabled people feel ashamed to use.

Technology is at its best when it removes barriers.

Artificial intelligence gives us the opportunity to remove barriers that previous generations might have considered impossible to overcome.

We should approach that future responsibly. But we should also approach it with ambition.

Accessibility should never be viewed as an incidental benefit of technological progress.

It may turn out to be one of its greatest achievements.

Smart glasses have brought assistive technology into the mainstream.

The question now is not whether we should turn back.

It is how we ensure the future they create is accessible, responsible and inclusive for everyone.