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On Monday morning, Meta, a company formerly known as Facebook, announced that it would shut down Facebook’s “Face Recognition System.” has triggered privacy alarms since its release. In one blog post, the company described the move as “one of the biggest changes in the use of face recognition in the history of technology.” On Twitter, Mike Schroepfer, the outgoing director, and Andrew Bosworth, who previously oversaw Facebook’s Oculus virtual reality division, called the announcement “”.great thingan “and”a very important decision”. Electronic Boundary Foundation supposedly “It’s a testament to all the work that activists have done to back up against this invasive technology.”
But reviews of Meta and Facebook’s VR privacy policies and the company’s response to a specific list of questions about them suggest that technology to identify the company’s face isn’t going anywhere. And it’s just one of many invasive methods of gathering data that can come up with a metaverse around you. (Disclosure: In a previous life, I held political positions on Facebook and Spotify.)
The announcement that Facebook is recently shutting down a controversial face recognition system has come at a difficult time for the company, which is facing significant regulatory scrutiny. years of bad press recently fired a top txistulari.
But the timing may also be right. The company is switching to virtual reality, face-to-face technology, which inevitably gathers a huge amount of data about its users. Based on this data, Meta will be able to create identification and surveillance systems that are as powerful as the system it puts in place. Being able to create these systems does not mean that they will. For now, though, the company leaves the options open.
The point is: Meta intends to gather unique and identifying information about the faces of its users. Last week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg say Stratechery’s Ben Thompson’s “one of the great new features” of Meta’s new Cambria headset is “eye tracking and face tracking.” And while the platform “turned off the service” that created Facebook user face profiles, the New York Times reported that it is a company. maintaining the algorithm on which this service was based. A Meta spokesperson declined to answer questions from BuzzFeed News about what the algorithm continues to use today.
Meta may have caused so much concern that it turned off Facebook’s facial recognition system, but given that it wants to maintain the algorithm that drives that system, there’s no reason why the company shouldn’t “reactivate it later”. David Brody, Attorney General of the Civil Rights Lawyers Committee.
Meanwhile, Meta’s current privacy policies leave plenty of room for VR devices to collect personal and biological data that reaches beyond the user’s face. Katitza Rodriguez, director of global privacy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the language “is broad enough to include a lot of potential data streams, even if not collected today, they can start tomorrow without necessarily notifying users. “.
Inevitably, virtual reality hardware collects completely different data about its users than social media platforms. VR headphones can be taught to recognize the user’s voice, veins, or iris shadow, or to detect measures that affect heart rate, respiratory rate, and student spread. Facebook has filed patents on many of these types of data collection, among others one which would use things like your face, voice, or your DNA to lock and unlock devices. Another one it would take into account the user’s “weight, strength, pressure, heart rate, pressure rate, or EEG data” to create a VR avatar. Patents are often desires – they cover potential use cases that never arise – but can sometimes provide insight into a company’s future plans.
Meta’s current VR privacy policies do not specify all types of data it collects about its users. The Oculus Privacy Settings, Oculus Privacy Policy, and Oculus Additional Data Policy, Which directs Meta’s current virtual reality offerings, provide some insight into the large categories of data that Oculus devices collect. But they all specify that their data fields (e.g., “the position of your headphones, the speed of the controller, and changes in your orientation are just like when you move your head”). examples within these categories, rather than a complete list of their contents.
The examples given also do not indicate the width of the categories they wish to replace. For example, the Oculus Privacy Policy states that Meta contains “information about your environment, physical movements, and dimensions when you use an XR device.” It then provides two examples of this collection: information about your VR play area and “technical information such as your estimated hand size and hand movement”.
But “information about your environment, physical movements, and dimensions” can describe the estimated data points of hand size and game limit; it may also include unwanted reactionary measures, such as a kink, or movements to identify in a unique way, such as a smile.
Meta has twice refused to specify the types of data its devices collect today and the types of data it intends to collect in the future. It also does not mean that biometric information is being collected or intended to be collected, such as heart rate, respiratory rate, pupil dilation, iris recognition, voice identification, vein recognition, facial movements, or facial recognition. Instead, he noted the policies linked above, and that “Oculus VR headsets currently do not process biometric data as specified by applicable law.” A company spokesman declined to specify the laws that Meta considers applicable.
Meta, however, provided additional information on how it uses personal data in advertising. The Additional Oculus terms of service say that Meta can use information about “actions” [users] They have taken Oculus products to provide advertisements and sponsored content. Depending on what Oculus defines “action,” this language may allow us to focus on what makes us jump from fear, or whether it shakes our hearts or sweats our hands.
But at least for now, Meta won’t target ads that way. Instead, a spokesman told BuzzFeed News that the company is using a narrower definition of “actions” that do not include motion data collected by the user’s VR device.
2020 document Called the “Principles of Responsible Innovation,” Facebook Reality Labs describes its approach to metaverse. The first of these principles, “Never surprise people,” begins: “We are transparent about how our products work and the data they collect.” In response to questions from BuzzFeed News, Meta said it will be in the future how our data will be collected and used if changes occur.
Without better clarity about the data Meta is currently collecting, “customers can’t afford to know when and how to use their products,” Brody told BuzzFeed News. What’s more, it’s hard for the public to understand how Meta can collect and use our data in the future if it doesn’t explain exactly what it’s doing now.
Brittan Heller, a law firm consultant and expert on human rights and virtual reality, said: “The VR industry is now in a phase of ‘eight magic balls.’ ‘Unsure view: ask again later’ “.
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