TL;DR
A Reform UK member of the Senedd is thought to have used smart glasses as a teleprompter during a five-minute speech, prompting calls for explicit guidance in Cardiff Bay and a Liberal Democrat letter asking the Commons Speaker to act on their “increasing use” at Westminster. The UK Parliament says it is already reviewing its policy on camera-equipped glasses and other wearables. The episode moves the smart-glasses debate from the privacy of bystanders, the ICO’s concern earlier this year, to the integrity of political speech.
Jason O’Connell, who represents Pontypridd Cynon Merthyr, delivered a speech dense with statistics against Wales’s 20mph zones without looking at his notes, the Guardian reports, while his spectacles flashed periodically. There is no suggestion they were recording. Senedd members have since said guidance on the devices is needed at pace. O’Connell has not commented, though his Sunday post on X showed him in oversized pink charity glasses, joking that his last pair had “caused quite a stir”.
The Westminster letter
Lindsay Hoyle received the Liberal Democrats’ letter on Wednesday 14 October. Anna Sabine, the party’s culture, media and sport spokesperson, raised two distinct worries. The first is about debate itself: if an MP’s words are being fed through AI glasses, she asked, “how much is the quality of what an MP is saying actually down to” the device. The second is security. Smart glasses can film and photograph discreetly, she wrote, and “increasingly their recording indicator lights can be covered or disabled”, while MPs routinely handle constituents’ private matters in meetings on the estate. Sabine said she had not spotted anyone wearing them in Parliament, “but I wouldn’t necessarily know”. She expects more of the devices after Christmas.
A parliamentary spokesperson confirmed a review of policy on camera-equipped smart glasses and other wearable technology. In the Lords, senior deputy speaker Lord Ponsonby said last month the review was weighing whether further guidance was needed, drawing on expertise in filming rules, security, data protection and accessibility.
Context
Smart glasses have been a recurring regulatory story this year. We reported the ICO’s privacy concerns over Meta’s glasses in March, its later note on accessibility uses and Norway’s temporary ban. Those concerned people being filmed. The Senedd case is different: the wearer is the one being assisted.
Looking forward
Parliament’s review was framed around recording, and in our view the harder question is the one Sabine raised first. A teleprompter in a lens is not obviously different from notes on a phone, but an AI feed that supplies statistics mid-speech is closer to having an adviser whisper in real time. Any UK organisation that runs formal proceedings, from tribunals to exam boards, will face the same distinction before long, and the accessibility case Lord Ponsonby cites means an outright ban is unlikely to be the answer.