1984, Reimagined: Can We Embrace AR Without Sacrificing Privacy?
Online privacy is a trending topic nowadays. We witness a growing public awareness, in which nearly 80% of US internet users are concerned about the data collected by companies. On the corporates’ end, market leader Apple has recently made significant privacy-focused changes like limiting apps’ tracking capabilities on iOS 14 and launching App Store privacy labels. Finally, authorities take action by forming new privacy regulations that include GDPR, CCPA, and more. In this article, we’ll examine the privacy dilemmas of AR and discuss tech leaders’ responsibility in that respect.
Developing innovative technology in the new age of privacy
The above factors are both the result and the fuel of an accelerated, yet overdue process. They also send a clear warning to companies developing tech solutions with the ability to put users’ private information at risk. Unlike the early days of the internet, when unsuspecting users never gave privacy worries a second thought, the new AR internet is founded in a different public climate with more aware and educated users.
This is true for both security and privacy issues, which are two different concepts. While data privacy focuses on the information collected and used by companies and users’ ability to control it, security issues refer to the company’s ability to keep this data safe from leaks and breaches. When companies protect users’ security, they collect data and keep it protected and encrypted on their server; when they protect their privacy, they refrain from even collecting or saving the data in the first place.
The augmented reality of user privacy
AR technologies collect, save, and even share user data. A prominent example is user location, which is considered extremely sensitive. So much so that only 6% of surveyed Americans felt safe sharing this information with apps.
But the real issue is far deeper than that. AR creates several complex user privacy dilemmas, which were discussed in-depth by thought leaders in our field:
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- 3D mapping of private spaces with centimeter-level accuracy that includes sending constant images and videos. To quote the AR-focused serial entrepreneur Matt Miesnieks, “AR means anyone can rip, mix, and burn reality itself.”
- In a way, AR experiences can “read our minds” and look into our fantasy universe. When these experiences are exposed to others, the information they share can be, in the words of AR researcher Blair MacIntyre, “a privacy nightmare.”
- Tracking users’ input can be dangerous because it offers many unique physical reactions like eye movement or speech. This is similar to medical user data that can provide problematic insights into our behavior and thoughts.
- When we are not the ones using AR, but instead, it is used “on us” by others, this might lead to harmful use cases that involve forced nudity and a loss of self-ownership. Tech pioneer Avi Bar-Zeev addresses this point when he asks, “who owns you?” in an article of that title.
Considering the alarming amount of data collected and used by companies and tech giants’ ability to shape our world, adding an unprotected layer to reality seems dangerous.
Most AR solutions use centralized servers for their mapping and relocalization efforts. They send information out of the device to allow a remote server to create and merge their 3D mappings needs. As a result, the server gains access to this data. This course of action can lead to both ownership issues and data leaks.
What’s next?
The future of AR privacy concerns depends on regulation in the field, technology advancements, and users’ demands.
We can expect regulation to advance so that it covers and prohibits some problematic use cases. In AR, guidelines are already starting to form around this topic. But we can’t wait for regulators to pave the way since tedious bureaucratic procedures typically force them to stay a few steps behind.
Users also have a lot of power but relying on them to influence a technology’s future before it even becomes mainstream is unrealistic. Widespread privacy concerns tend to show up when a lot of the damage was already done.
The key, therefore, is in tech leaders’ hands. It’s up to us to build an ethical AR solution that will set a new privacy standard for the rest of the industry and offer a safe path for users and developers alike. Technology creates this problem, and technology has the power to fix it.
Resight takes a strong stand on the importance of privacy, which goes beyond the need for proper security measures. We designed our solution from the ground up to protect AR users’ right to privacy.
When using our solution, the computation is 100% on-device, including the map-merging process. By building our solution this way, the data that leaves the device doesn’t need to be decrypted and acted upon in the cloud. Resight’s solution is built for non-centralized use without compromising on any of the necessary functionalities.
We also do not gather any personal identifying information from the end-users and move towards E2E encryption that prevents anyone from viewing users’ data or tampering with it. Our vision and mission statement are to enable the AR Metaverse’s existence without creating a 3D, centimeter-accurate model of the entire world.
As we’re about to welcome the new AR dimension into our world and make it an integral part of our everyday experiences, any leading AR technology has to address possible privacy implications and offer appropriate solutions. This is a hurdle that might not scare users away enough to kill the industry, but it will determine how it’s shaped and what AR will eventually become. AR is powerful and in the words of Peter Parker (who also existed in two different realities), “with great power comes great responsibility.”
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