MDE#11 Beyond Surveillance

Live maps and worldscraping 📹

Hi there! Almost everybody is on holiday. I’m not, but let’s just pretend for the sake of the illustration that I’m relaxing under the sun browsing this MDE edition, ha!

⏳ 5 min read

It’s the time of the year to talk about summer reads. I’ll recommend checking the white papers from IEEE XR Ethics. They aren’t a light read, but they provide great recommendations in niche areas. For reference, MDE#05 discussed the report from IEEE XR on ethics and diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.

Today we focus on anonymity and privacy, I’ll summarize essential points of the report Extended Reality (XR) and the Erosion of Anonymity and Privacy by Kent Bye, Michael Middleton, Monique J. Morrow, and Samira Khodaei to get a taste of it whenever you have 5 minutes. 😉

Let’s go!

The erosion of anonymity and privacy

Erosion? Humm… that’s a good word. According to Merriam-Webster, to erode means to “diminish or destroy by degrees.” Aka, to destroy little by little.

When human rights get eroded, we give up our rights little by little, becoming almost unaware that our rights are fading off.

Where is the balance? This is the key question.

There is always a tension between preserving human rights such as anonymity and privacy, and benefitting from the advantages that emerging technologies such as AR or VR offer us. In this newsletter, I refer to the metaverse as a vision for the next wave of computing that is ubiquitous, seamless, and immersive—making use of AR and VR.

Now, let’s talk about data. 😀

Why data privacy is such a deal in the metaverse? Because of the amount of data collected by headsets. This includes four different kinds of data:

• Movements and physical actions are tracked by the headsets’ cameras.

• Neural activity is detected when the headset is equipped with EEG sensor devices.

• Context is analyzed by determining your location and mapping your environment, including the people present in it.

• Physiology is detected when the headset includes biometric data such as eye gaze or heart-rate data.

It’s legitimate to capture data to create the experience of a virtual world where we can spatially navigate and interact (aka the metaverse). What we need to remember is that it’s important to be critical about what data is being collected and for which purpose.

Creating such live maps (real-time maps powered by headset data mapping our environment) is a double-edged sword. Live maps may be used for surveillance to the extent of the hardware’s sensors. With multiple headsets combined with other devices, we may reach a point of saturation where spaces may be monitored from multiple angles.

We do not need to be alarmist, just become aware of the situation and the double-edged uses of AR/VR hardware. Whenever consumer AR/VR becomes mainstream and allowed in public spaces, the era of the global panopticon may become a reality, as lawyer Elizabeth M. Renieris states.

Live maps and worldscraping

Beyond surveillance, the issue with live maps—also named as worldscraping—is that they are fed from users’ and bystanders’ data. By the mere fact of using an AR/VR device, AR/VR users agree to their data collection practices. However, bystanders will also be sensed and tracked, without having agreed to any form of consent.

Making a difference between users and bystanders is crucial to defining human rights in virtual worlds. This is an essential point for policymakers.❗️

Rights and protections

AR and VR technologies set an unprecedented challenge for legislation as they affect users as well as non-users whose data may be captured with an AR/VR device. Plus, digital privacy gets complex as it is borderless by nature.

“The current system of digital privacy protection is no longer tenable in an extended reality world. Laws are jurisdictional in nature and often do not apply in extended reality that can be borderless by nature. There must be a focus on defining harms within extended reality that result when personal digital privacy is breached.” Source here.

In Europe, the General Data Protection Rule (GDPR) sets the rules on how personal data should be handled. How would GDPR be applied in worldscraping cases? This is just an example of the new type of challenges that the adoption of XR will bring in the years to come.

Overall, the great challenge is balancing the legitimate use of AR/VR sensing (to map the world around the user and enable the AR/VR experience) against the rights and freedoms of users and bystanders. Where is the line?

So what can we do?

Here, we are just anticipating some of the challenges for the years to come.

As an ideal, we can dream of a global 🌐 Extended Reality Privacy Rights Framework, especially in an interoperable metaverse where data may travel from one platform to the other, from one country to another, without borders.

Coming back to reality and understanding that a common agreement worldwide will be an “outstanding operation”, let’s rather be humble and manage, at least, the following:

• XR Platforms: adopting a rigorous control over the sensors that APIs applications may use, and how the data is protected from unintended or unanticipated processing. In the case of “risky” requests, informing users or simply denying access.

• Companies should strive to adopt leading guidelines for XR privacy protections and enforce those on their app stores and platforms. For example, Lynx Mixed Reality includes a privacy-by-design statement for their headset.

• Users should be given the tools to retain agency over their device and its sensing activity (hardware) and the applications using data (software).

Finally, to prevent any gaps in legislation, it would be good to start thinking about the rights of victims of metaverse harms and privacy violations, just to be safe. 😉

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NEWS OF THE PAST MONTH: just adapting to my new life in Paris: breathing its fresh air, tasting great croissants, seeing good old friends, taking dumb tourist pictures, and getting used to a looonnng daily metro commute… takes time, huh.

Palais Royal and its Alice-in-Wonderland style.

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Thanks for reading until the end! I am looking forward to having you as part of this expanding community. Just click below 👇 to keep updated on the next ones.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed here are my own and do not represent the views or opinions of my current or any past employer.