Tech giant Meta’s third-generation AI-powered ‘smartglasses’ offer users access to seamless, real-time search, audio and analytics tools simply by wearing a pair of ordinary-looking sunglasses.

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Critically, this technology also lets the wearer record high-definition footage of everything they see, with the only indication that they are doing so being a small LED light on the rim. Dubbed ‘pervert glasses’ by campaigners, many have warned that this tech poses an unacceptable risk to unwitting women and girls who may be covertly photographed and recorded by sexual predators.

I have spent over 20 years as a criminal defence solicitor. Over the course of my legal career, I have seen the nature of sex offending shift dramatically with changes in technology - and it is changing again. Devices like smart glasses and AI more broadly will do what smartphones and social media did to crime 15 years ago, and multiply it a hundredfold. This will mean the application of these tools to crimes that already........

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