Oculus Rift and Privacy – Fans Concerned about Privacy Issues
Oculus VR is a virtual reality technology company founded by American developers Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe. Although their product, known as Oculus Rift, is still under construction, the company has already gained thousands of users all over the globe via early shipments and pre-orders.
Oculus Rift is a head mounted display for immersive virtual reality. Already big in the gaming world, the Rift is also getting popular in a large number of other fields including entertainment and medicine. In March 2014, Facebook reached an agreement with the developers and decided to buy Oculus VR for $2 billion US dollars.
Oculus Rift is developing swiftly and getting better day by day. Whether it is a thrilling video game, a virtual trip to your favorite city in the world, a singing competition, an exciting movie or improving your health, the VR headset has many applications. However, there is one that has been bugging the fans. Since the company has been acquired by Facebook, fans have been questioning the user privacy and data safety. It is common knowledge that Facebook shows a certain disregard for user privacy. According to its privacy policy, Oculus Rift disclosed that it will store all the basic information of the user like email addresses, date of birth, gender, occupation and zip codes. The company guarantees that user’s personal data will be safe and won’t be forwarded, sold or rented without their consent, except as provided herein.
Moreover, it will also collect users’ online transactions, purchase history, application usage patterns and website usage patterns. However, Oculus VR isn’t responsible when it comes to third-party websites and data safety which is rather worrisome. In its privacy policy, the company states that third-party sites, services and applications which are accessed through the Oculus websites have separate privacy and data collection practices completely independent of them. Oculus has no responsibility over their actions. If users give any information to third parties, different rules regarding the collection and use of their personal information may apply.
Oculus Rift has the ability to track and record body movements and visceral reactions that occur to the stimuli of the games. This sort of data when combined with the usual, harmless information collected by companies such as Facebook and Samsung will describe the users’ habits and private lives in great detail. To avoid this, the company should improve their privacy policy by letting users to set their own privacy controls.
Facebook Buys Virtual Reality Company Oculus VR!
For more information on Oculus Rift and its privacy issues, please visit the following links:
http://techpageone.dell.com/technology/oculus-rift-and-your-privacy-is-your-data-safe/#.VEY9oyKUeyY
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/4932/20140329/oculus-rift-fans-dont-trust-facebook-are-their-privacy-concerns-unfounded.htm
http://www.itworld.com/article/2697472/consumerization/facebook-s-purchase-of-oculus-rift-may-blow-up-in-its-face.html
