Shockat Adam

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the hon. Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine) on securing this important debate. I declare my interest as a practising optometrist. For my whole working life a pair of glasses has been my livelihood, and it has been nothing but an object of trust and good, allowing people to see and changing their lives. It is one of the most trustworthy pieces of clothing we could have. No one has ever been deceived by a pair of glasses, except perhaps when Clark Kent prevented us knowing he was Superman. My son likes to wear glasses with no lenses, so he can look very intelligent posting on social media with books in coffee shops. It is a matter of debate how convincing that is, but generally glasses are a product for good. I am not a technophobe. I have seen in my practice, and that of colleagues, what this technology can do, as has been acknowledged by hon. Members. It can be used for good. More than 2 million people in this country live with sight loss and 250 more begin to lose their sight every day. For a blind or partially sighted person walking down the street to be able to ask their glasses what is front of them and hear that, for example, a van is unloading scaffolding, is genuinely life changing. I will not argue that we should take that away—I suspect nobody here would—but we cannot ignore what is happening. It has been reported that more than 7 million pairs of one brand alone were sold last year in this country. We have all witnessed men using these glasses covertly on our streets, posting the footage online and then demanding money to take it down. There are reports of women being filmed during sex without knowledge or consent. As the hon. Member for Leicester East (Shivani Raja) mentioned, a small LED is supposed to warn of recording, but it is easy to miss. I sell these glasses and know it is not always possible to see the lights.