Oculus Rift VR headset’s software is sending your data back to Facebook servers
The world’s costliest VR headset may be spying on you. Exactly two years ago when Facebook bought Oculus VR for $2 billion, it was thought to be a matter of time before Oculus Rift became a part of larger Facebook advertorial market.
Now that the Oculus Rift headset is officially released to users, it seems that Facebook is indeed using the VR headset to further its advertising strategy. masses and laid bare for scrutiny, it appears those apprehensions may have a bit more credence. A Reddit user, Woofington found out that an “always on” background service in Oculus Rift software sends information from the virtual reality headset back to Facebook’s servers.
Woofington 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.
Woofington found out that the process sent up to 7MB/s data from his device on one instance, even after shutting down Oculus Home.
If you thought that the Oculus Rift privacy policy would help you counter this spying, you are mistaken. In fact, the Oculus Rift privacy policy takes users consent to its terms and conditions which states that it can use the users data for third party use.
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 privacy policy explicitly states that “third parties may also collect information about you through the Services,” according to UploadVR.
