Virtual reality (VR) technologies have never been more accessible. The utopian vision of accessibility is that it has a democratizing effect; however, when companies monetize their technology, the trade-off is often privacy.

Biometric data collection by companies and governments is on the rise, and adverse effects of “filter bubbles” that prey upon negative emotional responses also continue to afflict society. As an increasingly mainstream technological medium, VR is already used as a tool towards these ends, and Meta has gone on record indicating their data extraction-based business model will not change. Is there time to intervene? What would intervention look like at the point of policy, and at the point of design?

Join us for a panel discussion about current trends and concerns in data privacy policy as it relates to VR and extended reality (XR) technologies. This panel brings together diverse perspectives on data privacy policy and liberatory digital systems. We’ll talk about recent developments in U.S. privacy policy as it pertains to biometric data collection, and implications for VR moving forward.

This event is free and open to the public.

Hosted by the Princeton University Library and co-sponsored by the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP)