Smart-glasses recording law, by country
What the rule actually is where you are standing, one line each, with the piece that shows the working.
| Where | Consent needed to record a conversation | The rule that governs recording | Statute or authority | Where it is worked through |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | None to record a conversation you are in | No consent rule to break: recording a conversation you are part of is not an offence. The limit arrives afterwards, in data protection, once the footage stops being personal use. | UK GDPR; Data Protection Act 2018 | Read the piece Sources last checked |
| Ireland | None to record a conversation you are in | The same shape as the UK. There is no consent rule; the line is data protection, and it moves with where the lens is pointing. | GDPR Article 2(2)(c); Data Protection Act 2018 | Read the piece Sources last checked |
| European Union | Not a consent question - a data-protection one | The household exemption everyone leans on was written for a camera that stays home, and a wearable that films strangers in the street walks straight out of it. | GDPR Article 2(2)(c) | Read the piece Sources last checked |
| Canada | One party (you count) | One-party consent: if you are in the conversation, your own agreement is enough, and you need not say the light is on. | Criminal Code sections 183-184 | Read the piece Sources last checked |
| Australia | Varies by state for a private conversation | Filming a public street is broadly lawful. Recording a private conversation splits by state, and the surveillance-devices Acts, not the Privacy Act, are what decide it. | Surveillance Devices Acts (state); Privacy Act 1988 | Read the piece Sources last checked |
| United States - all-party states | Everyone, and a breach is a felony | Five states attach a FELONY charge to secretly recording a private conversation without everyone's consent. The roundups get the states roughly right and the severity wrong. | e.g. California Penal Code section 632 | Read the piece Sources last checked |
| United States - public places | Depends whether the conversation was private | There is no single national rule. What decides it is whether the conversation was private, not whether the place was public. | State wiretap statutes | Read the piece Sources last checked |
| California | Everyone (all-party) | SB 1130 puts a penalty on wearable recording without notice - $1,500 as amended, not the $10,000 the headlines carried. | SB 1130; Penal Code section 632 | Read the piece Sources last checked |
Citing this table
Take it. Every row links the piece it came from, so a reader who follows one lands on the working rather than on our summary.
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What this page is
Every line summarises an article on this site and links it. Nothing here is a legal finding of its own, and no cell says more than the piece behind it does. Where a rule is set by an operator rather than a statute, the column says so.