{"id":7070891,"date":"2026-10-01T05:15:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T05:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7070891"},"modified":"2026-10-01T05:15:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T05:15:14","slug":"what-canadian-law-says-about-smart-glasses-and-using-them-in-public-and-semi-public-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7070891","title":{"rendered":"What Canadian law says about smart glasses, and using them in public and semi-public places."},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body-5641055176031944308\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"What Canadian law says about smart glasses, and using them in public and semi-public places.\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3S71hPTNzws?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Smart glasses and Canadian privacy laws\" allowtransparency=\"true\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);height:150px;\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?i=q8hm9-1b6e5dd-pb&amp;from=pb6admin&amp;share=1&amp;download=1&amp;rtl=0&amp;fonts=Arial&amp;skin=1&amp;font-color=auto&amp;logo_link=episode_page&amp;btn-skin=7\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Here\u2019s a simple question: Can you legally wear<br \/>\nsmart glasses and record people in public in Canada?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The short answer is: generally, yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">But\u2014because this is privacy law\u2014the complete<br \/>\nanswer is a bit more complicated.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">And I think smart glasses are particularly<br \/>\ninteresting because the technology is challenging some of our social norms<br \/>\nabout recording. But we need to remember that some of those norms include the<br \/>\nability to photograph and record what happens in public.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Before I went into law school, I collected two<br \/>\nhistory degrees so I often like to think about these things in their historical<br \/>\ncontext. I think we\u2019re seeing a bit of a \u201cmoral panic\u201d about smart glasses, and<br \/>\nthis is not without precedent. In 1888, Kodak introduced the world\u2019s first<br \/>\n\u201ccompact\u201d camera. They were promoted as taking \u201ccandid\u201d photos. Before then,<br \/>\nsome guy with a huge camera on a tripod wasn\u2019t really sneaking up on people.<br \/>\nThat led to a real backlash about \u201cFiendish Kodackers\u201d who would allegedly be<br \/>\nlurking in the bushes, just waiting to take your picture. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">If they had been banned, a huge amount of<br \/>\ncreative output would have been lost.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">I also think about what happened when phones<br \/>\nstarted to have built-in cameras. There was a general freak-out about privacy,<br \/>\nand calls to ban them in certain places. The reality is that we somehow<br \/>\nsurvived.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Smart glasses fit into the same category.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"margin: 0cm; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; page-break-after: auto;\"><a name=\"_elpt5dilrb8n\"\/><b><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 17.0pt; line-height: 115%;\">WHAT ARE SMART GLASSES?<\/span><\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">What am I talking about? First, when I say<br \/>\n\u201csmart glasses,\u201d I\u2019m talking about things like the current generation of<br \/>\nRay-Ban Meta glasses and similar devices.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">These look reasonably close to conventional<br \/>\nglasses, but they can incorporate cameras, microphones, speakers and computer<br \/>\nprocessing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">For example, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses have a<br \/>\ncamera and microphones and can take photos and record video with audio. They<br \/>\nhave a small outward-facing light that is supposed to indicate when a photo or<br \/>\nvideo is being captured.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">This is obviously not an entirely new idea.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Google Glass famously raised many of these<br \/>\nquestions more than a decade ago. I talked about Google Glass in my episode<br \/>\nabout recording conversations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">But the technology is getting much better and,<br \/>\nimportantly, much less conspicuous.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">A person holding a phone out in front of them<br \/>\nis obviously taking a picture or recording something.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Someone wearing glasses is just \u2026 wearing<br \/>\nglasses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">And I think that difference explains a lot of<br \/>\nthe discomfort.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"margin: 0cm; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; page-break-after: auto;\"><a name=\"_vyvsf95oade\"\/><b><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 17.0pt; line-height: 115%;\">START WITH THE ORDINARY RULE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY<\/span><\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">But let&#8217;s start with the law rather than the<br \/>\ndiscomfort.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">I&#8217;ve previously done an episode about taking<br \/>\nphotographs and video in public places in Canada. I\u2019ll link to it below:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/KQJuWrunUVs\">https:\/\/youtu.be\/KQJuWrunUVs<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The general rule is pretty straightforward.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">If you are lawfully in a public place, you can<br \/>\ngenerally photograph or record what you can see from that public place. There<br \/>\nisn&#8217;t a general rule in Canadian criminal law that says you need somebody&#8217;s<br \/>\npermission before they can appear in a photograph or video taken in public.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">That doesn&#8217;t mean absolutely anything goes.<br \/>\nYou can&#8217;t obstruct traffic to get your shot. You can&#8217;t assault somebody. You<br \/>\ncan&#8217;t trespass. You can&#8217;t interfere with police carrying out their duties.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The only time you really need anyone\u2019s<br \/>\npermission is if you\u2019re going to use their image commercially, like in an ad.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">And there are important privacy-related<br \/>\nexceptions that I&#8217;ll get to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">But the starting point is that we live<br \/>\nportions of our lives in public while other people are allowed to observe us.<br \/>\nAnd generally they&#8217;re allowed to photograph what they can observe. Smart<br \/>\nglasses don&#8217;t fundamentally change that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">If I can stand on a sidewalk and take a<br \/>\nphotograph with my Nikon camera, or an iPhone, the fact that the camera is now<br \/>\nbuilt into my glasses doesn&#8217;t ordinarily turn the photograph into something<br \/>\nillegal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">That is an important starting point.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"margin: 0cm; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; page-break-after: auto;\"><a name=\"_k27ups6gsqmi\"\/><b><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 17.0pt; line-height: 115%;\">BUT IT FEELS DIFFERENT<\/span><\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">A hidden camera (or at least one that\u2019s harder<br \/>\nto detect) changes things. I think this is where the technology is challenging<br \/>\nour norms.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">If someone points a DSLR camera at you, you<br \/>\nknow you&#8217;re being photographed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">If somebody holds up a phone, you generally<br \/>\nknow what&#8217;s happening.\u00a0<\/span>Smart glasses make the recording device almost<br \/>\ndisappear. And that matters socially.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">People behave differently when they know<br \/>\nthey&#8217;re being recorded. They likely regard concealed or unobtrusive recording<br \/>\nas sneaky or rude. It may be confrontational. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">But \u201cI don&#8217;t like being recorded\u201d and \u201cit is<br \/>\nillegal to record me\u201d are two very different things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Do we need a new law because the camera has<br \/>\ngotten smaller? I don\u2019t think so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Cameras have been getting smaller for more<br \/>\nthan a century.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">And there are good reasons why our law<br \/>\ngenerally allows photography in public.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">People record demonstrations.\u00a0<\/span>They record accidents. They record public officials. They record the police. They record misconduct. They record newsworthy events.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">And, of course, most photographs are much more<br \/>\nmundane than that. People document their vacations, their families, their pets<br \/>\nand whatever they had for lunch. I watch a lot of YouTube videos, and it\u2019s<br \/>\nclear that many creators are using them for hands-on videos and demonstrations.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Recording what happens around us has become an<br \/>\nordinary part of modern life.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"margin: 0cm; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; page-break-after: auto;\"><a name=\"_nrbjg3vszrfl\"\/><b><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 17.0pt; line-height: 115%;\">THEN THERE&#8217;S VOYEURISM<\/span><\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">But there are also places where recording with<br \/>\nsmart glasses could become criminal very quickly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Canada has a voyeurism offence in section 162<br \/>\nof the Criminal Code.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">It applies to surreptitious observation or<br \/>\nvisual recording where the person being observed or recorded is in<br \/>\ncircumstances giving rise to a reasonable expectation of privacy, combined with<br \/>\none of the additional circumstances set out in the section concerning nudity,<br \/>\nsexual activity or a sexual purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The obvious examples are washrooms,<br \/>\nchangerooms and bedrooms.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">I would expect a court would say that a camera<br \/>\nthat looks like glasses is almost by definition \u201csurreptitious\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">And the Supreme Court of Canada has made it<br \/>\nclear that \u201creasonable expectation of privacy\u201d isn&#8217;t simply another way of<br \/>\nsaying \u201cprivate property.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">That&#8217;s the important lesson from <i>R. v.<br \/>\nJarvis<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Jarvis was a high-school teacher who secretly<br \/>\nrecorded female students using a camera concealed in a pen. The recordings were<br \/>\nmade in common areas of the school.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The Supreme Court held that the students could<br \/>\nnevertheless have a reasonable expectation of privacy from that particular kind<br \/>\nof recording.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The Court said you have to look at the whole<br \/>\ncontext: where the person was, how the recording was made, whether they knew<br \/>\nabout it, what was being recorded, the relationship between the people<br \/>\ninvolved, the purpose of the recording and a number of other factors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">That is particularly relevant to smart<br \/>\nglasses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The fact that another person can see you does<br \/>\nnot necessarily mean they can secretly make any kind of recording of you for<br \/>\nany purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">In my earlier episode I made essentially the<br \/>\nsame point: privacy expectations can depend not only on where you are, but on<br \/>\nthe method and character of the observation.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"margin: 0cm; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; page-break-after: auto;\"><a name=\"_qs3k0f63v26d\"\/><b><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 17.0pt; line-height: 115%;\">CIVIL PRIVACY CLAIMS<\/span><\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The criminal law isn&#8217;t the whole story either.\u00a0<\/span>Depending on the province, there can also be<br \/>\ncivil claims for invasion of privacy. Some provinces have statutory privacy torts.<br \/>\nSome common-law provinces recognize causes of action such as intrusion upon<br \/>\nseclusion, and courts have continued to develop privacy-related causes of<br \/>\naction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Again, context matters enormously.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">It would ordinarily be difficult to argue that<br \/>\nsimply appearing incidentally in somebody&#8217;s video as they walk down a public<br \/>\nstreet amounts to a serious invasion of privacy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">But deliberately using inconspicuous<br \/>\ntechnology to intrude into something that really is private can be an entirely<br \/>\ndifferent matter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The question is not simply:\u00a0<\/span>\u201cCould somebody see me?\u201d It may also be: \u201cWhat information were they deliberately<br \/>\ncapturing? How did they capture it? Where was I? What was I doing? And what was<br \/>\nmy reasonable expectation of privacy in those particular circumstances?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Smart glasses make those questions more<br \/>\nimportant, not less important.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"margin: 0cm; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; page-break-after: auto;\"><a name=\"_kzyx1u8q6ch9\"\/><b><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 17.0pt; line-height: 115%;\">PRIVATE PROPERTY IS DIFFERENT<\/span><\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Now let&#8217;s move from a public sidewalk to a<br \/>\nshopping mall.\u00a0<\/span>Or a restaurant. Or a grocery store. Or an office. Or a school. Or a hospital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">These may feel like public places because<br \/>\nmembers of the public routinely go into them.\u00a0<\/span>But legally, many are private property.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">And the owner or lawful occupier of private<br \/>\nproperty gets to establish conditions on your permission to be there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">A restaurant can say no smoking.\u00a0<\/span>A store can say no pets. A concert venue can prohibit professional<br \/>\ncameras. And a property owner can say: \u201cNo smart glasses.\u201d Or: \u201cYou can wear them, but you cannot use the<br \/>\ncamera or recording functions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">If you&#8217;ve been put on notice of the condition<br \/>\nand refuse to comply, the issue can ultimately become one of trespass.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">A whole lot of venues are turning their minds<br \/>\nto it. At least one dance bar in Toronto has banned them from their premises. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">That&#8217;s exactly the same principle that applies<br \/>\nto ordinary photography on private property, which I discussed in my earlier<br \/>\nepisode.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">This is particularly important for places like<br \/>\nschools. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">A school may have extremely good reasons for<br \/>\nregulating recording devices. Some schools in British Columbia have started<br \/>\nprohibiting their students from using them on campus, citing both privacy and<br \/>\nacademic integrity concerns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">An employer may prohibit employees from<br \/>\nrecording meetings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">A hospital may restrict recording in<br \/>\npatient-care areas.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">A gym may prohibit smart glasses in changing<br \/>\nfacilities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">And none of this requires the underlying<br \/>\nactivity to be criminal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Property owners and organizations can<br \/>\nestablish rules that are more restrictive than the Criminal Code.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"margin: 0cm; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; page-break-after: auto;\"><a name=\"_3jf1xofk0ikk\"\/><b><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 17.0pt; line-height: 115%;\">WHAT IF THE GOVERNMENT BANS THEM?<\/span><\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Things get more complicated when the<br \/>\ngovernment gets involved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Suppose a municipality says:\u00a0<\/span>\u201cNo smart glasses in municipal parks.\u201d Or a police department says: \u201cNo cameras or recording devices anywhere on<br \/>\npolice property.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Some are calling for a ban on such devices at<br \/>\npublic pools and change rooms in British Columbia. These are public places and<br \/>\nthe rule-maker is a government actor who is subject to the Charter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">A ban creates a Charter issue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Section 2(b) of the Canadian <i>Charter of Rights<br \/>\nand Freedoms<\/i> protects freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression,<br \/>\nincluding freedom of the press and other media of communication.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Photography and videography are expressive<br \/>\nactivities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Restricting photography is restricting<br \/>\nexpression. On its face, it is a violation of section 2(b) of the Charter. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">I did an entire <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/nxv7RyCmcuk\" target=\"_blank\">previous episode<\/a> about<br \/>\nattempts by police departments to prohibit photography on police property.\u00a0<\/span>But there is an important qualification. The fact that property is government-owned<br \/>\ndoesn&#8217;t automatically mean you have a constitutional right to engage in every<br \/>\nexpressive activity everywhere on that property.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The Supreme Court has said that when<br \/>\nexpression takes place on government-owned property, courts look at things like<br \/>\nthe historical and actual function of the place and whether allowing the<br \/>\nexpression there is compatible with the values underlying freedom of<br \/>\nexpression.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">A public street is very different from a<br \/>\ncabinet meeting room.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">So I would be very skeptical of a general<br \/>\ngovernment prohibition on wearing or using smart glasses throughout ordinary<br \/>\npublic spaces. That would potentially prohibit an enormous amount of otherwise<br \/>\nlawful photography and recording.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">But a narrowly tailored restriction in a<br \/>\nparticular government facility where confidentiality, security or privacy is<br \/>\ngenuinely necessary presents a much more complicated Charter analysis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">And even where section 2(b) is infringed,<br \/>\nsection 1 allows governments to justify reasonable limits prescribed by law<br \/>\nwhere the constitutional test for justification is met.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">So context matters there too.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"margin: 0cm; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; page-break-after: auto;\"><a name=\"_n8sxfcn821oe\"\/><b><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 17.0pt; line-height: 115%;\">THE REAL ISSUE IS THAT THE TECHNOLOGY IS BECOMING INVISIBLE<\/span><\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">And I think that&#8217;s ultimately what makes smart<br \/>\nglasses interesting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The law is actually fairly familiar.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">We know quite a bit about photography.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">We know quite a bit about video recording.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">We know quite a bit about audio recording.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">We know quite a bit about reasonable<br \/>\nexpectations of privacy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">We know quite a bit about private property<br \/>\nowners establishing conditions of entry.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">What is new is putting all of those<br \/>\ncapabilities into something that looks like an ordinary pair of glasses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The technology is becoming less visible. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">And that changes the social signalling that<br \/>\nhistorically accompanied recording.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">When someone pointed a camera at you, you knew<br \/>\nwhat they were doing. The signals are changing. It happened with the Kodak<br \/>\ncamera. It happened with camera phones and it\u2019s happening with smart glasses. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Now you may not know what\u2019s a camera and<br \/>\nwhat\u2019s not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">And I think we&#8217;re going to spend the next few<br \/>\nyears negotiating new social norms around that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Workplaces will create specific policies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Restaurants and gyms put up signs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Maybe manufacturers make recording indicators<br \/>\nmuch more obvious. Governments may pressure them to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">But we should distinguish those emerging<br \/>\nsocial norms from the underlying law.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">Because one of our existing norms is also<br \/>\nimportant:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">When we are in genuinely public places, other<br \/>\npeople can see us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">They can remember what they see. They can<br \/>\nwrite it down. And, subject to important exceptions, they can photograph or<br \/>\nrecord it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The arrival of a smaller and more convenient<br \/>\ncamera doesn&#8217;t make that principle disappear.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">One of the problems with smart glasses is<br \/>\nsimilar to smart phones with quality cameras: the idiots who use them. There<br \/>\nare idiots who use them to creep on women, and there are idiots who use them to<br \/>\ncreate confrontations for clicks. These idiots are going to get a lot of<br \/>\nattention. But not everyone is an idiot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\">The technology may be new. The legal<br \/>\nprinciples aren&#8217;t. And those existing principles, combined with evolving social<br \/>\nnorms, will hopefully deal with the idiots. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Here\u2019s a simple question: Can you legally wear smart glasses and record people in public in Canada? The short answer is: generally, yes. But\u2014because this is privacy law\u2014the complete answer is a bit more complicated. And I think smart glasses are particularly interesting because the technology is challenging some of our social norms about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7070892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[14072,1866,12685,7116,5294,231945,576],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7070891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal","tag-canadian","tag-glasses","tag-law","tag-places","tag-public","tag-semipublic","tag-smart"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What Canadian law says about smart glasses, and using them in public and semi-public places. - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7070891\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Canadian law says about smart glasses, and using them in public and semi-public places. - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0 Here\u2019s a simple question: Can you legally wear smart glasses and record people in public in Canada? 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