Oculus Rift VR headsets streaming data to Facebook might raise privacy concerns: Report

When social networking giant Facebook acquired virtual reality startup Oculus VR for almost $2 billion, the reason cited by CEO Mark Zuckerberg was that he felt it was one of the next most important computing platforms. But we knew he would find a way around maybe pushing ads out in the virtual world and track user activity in that domain too. With the Oculus Rift headset officially available now, it seems that the spying theory is more of a reality. As this report says, a user has found that an ‘always on’ background service in Oculus Rift software sends information from the headset back to Facebook’s servers. The user writes on a reddit thread that ‘after installing the Oculus Home software on the device, a process with full system permissions called OVRServer_x64.exe detects when the device is turned on and sends data to Facebook’s servers.’ Surprisingly, that user also found the process sending up to 7MB/s data from his device on one instance, even after shutting down Oculus Home. The report by Techworm reveals that the privacy policy clearly states that “depending on how you access and use” its services, Facebook may collect information about the games, content, apps, and other experiences a user interacts with; a user’s IP address and “certain device identifiers that may be unique to your device”; a device’s precise location based on GPS signal, Wi-Fi networks and cellular towers; and information about a user’s “physical movements and dimensions” when the headset is used. The report shares another disturbing fact that the privacy policy also reveals that third parties may also collect information about you through the Services.