Meta Will Start Collecting 'Anonymized' Data About Quest Headset Usage (arstechnica.com) 31
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Meta will soon begin "collecting anonymized data" from users of its Quest headsets, a move that could see the company aggregating information about hand, body, and eye tracking; camera information; "information about your physical environment"; and information about "the virtual reality events you attend." In an email sent to Quest users Monday, Meta notes that it currently collects "the data required for your Meta Quest to work properly." Starting with the next software update, though, the company will begin collecting and aggregating "anonymized data about... device usage" from Quest users. That anonymized data will be used "for things like building better experiences and improving Meta Quest products for everyone," the company writes.
A linked help page on data sharing clarifies that Meta can collect anonymized versions of any of the usage data included in the "Supplemental Meta Platforms Technologies Privacy Policy," which was last updated in October. That document lists a host of personal information that Meta can collect from your headset, including:
- "Your audio data, when your microphone preferences are enabled, to animate your avatar's lip and face movement"
- "Certain data" about hand, body, and eye tracking, "such as tracking quality and the amount of time it takes to detect your hands and body"
- Fitness-related information such as the "number of calories you burned, how long you've been physically active, [and] your fitness goals and achievements"
- "Information about your physical environment and its dimensions" such as "the size of walls, surfaces, and objects in your room and the distances between them and your headset"
- "Voice interactions" used when making audio commands or dictations, including audio recordings and transcripts that might include "any background sound that happens when you use those services" (these recordings and transcriptions are deleted "immediately" in most cases, Meta writes)
- Information about "your activity in virtual reality," including "the virtual reality events you attend"
The anonymized collection data is used in part to "analyz[e] device performance and reliability" to "improve the hardware and software that powers your experiences with Meta VR Products." Meta's help page also lists a small subset of "additional data" that headset users can opt out of sharing with Meta. But there's no indication that Quest users can opt out of the new anonymized data collection policies entirely. These policies only seem to apply to users who make use of a Meta account to access their Quest headsets, and those users are also subject to Meta's wider data-collection policies. Those who use a legacy Oculus account are subject to a separate privacy policy that describes a similar but more limited set of data-collection practices.
A linked help page on data sharing clarifies that Meta can collect anonymized versions of any of the usage data included in the "Supplemental Meta Platforms Technologies Privacy Policy," which was last updated in October. That document lists a host of personal information that Meta can collect from your headset, including:
- "Your audio data, when your microphone preferences are enabled, to animate your avatar's lip and face movement"
- "Certain data" about hand, body, and eye tracking, "such as tracking quality and the amount of time it takes to detect your hands and body"
- Fitness-related information such as the "number of calories you burned, how long you've been physically active, [and] your fitness goals and achievements"
- "Information about your physical environment and its dimensions" such as "the size of walls, surfaces, and objects in your room and the distances between them and your headset"
- "Voice interactions" used when making audio commands or dictations, including audio recordings and transcripts that might include "any background sound that happens when you use those services" (these recordings and transcriptions are deleted "immediately" in most cases, Meta writes)
- Information about "your activity in virtual reality," including "the virtual reality events you attend"
The anonymized collection data is used in part to "analyz[e] device performance and reliability" to "improve the hardware and software that powers your experiences with Meta VR Products." Meta's help page also lists a small subset of "additional data" that headset users can opt out of sharing with Meta. But there's no indication that Quest users can opt out of the new anonymized data collection policies entirely. These policies only seem to apply to users who make use of a Meta account to access their Quest headsets, and those users are also subject to Meta's wider data-collection policies. Those who use a legacy Oculus account are subject to a separate privacy policy that describes a similar but more limited set of data-collection practices.
Article from August 2024 (Score:2)
MicroMetaBroadcomSoftKroger under fire after allegedly anonymous data collection from Meta headsets combined with their LLM data collections practices and advertising profiles were leaked when the company suffered a breach due to state-backed hackers. Trillions of dollars have been drained from the economy.
No one cares, literally (Score:2)
Quest headsets come from Meta. Literally everyone knows what they are getting themselves into and if you asked anyone you'll almost universally find that they assumed they were already being tracked.
Yep. (Score:2)
There is too much profit in consumer profiling to expect anyone to abstain from it. Those who can, do.
It would be possible to prevent this if there was unified and consistent push-back on it from the target market. But almost nobody values their privacy enough for that, so the few who do just have to go without the products or services that track them.
Re: (Score:2)
You won't see other Apple doing this. I don't think you're likely to see it from HTC either.
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That's kinda hard to pull off. They might have a hard time explaining why their hardware refuses to work if it cannot stream data to their mothership servers.
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HTC openly state in their privacy policy the collect data on you. They just claim to not sell it to third parties. Apple is no different. If you think you are completely private you're delusional. The VR world is highly dependent on data about use. All emerging technology is.
Re: No one cares, literally (Score:1)
These headsets have literally had these clauses in there since the beginning. They arenâ(TM)t changing the deal, they are just collecting upon the treasure trove they invested in. They were selling $1500+ headsets for $500, you were always the product.
Re: No one cares, literally (Score:2)
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To be fair you're both wrong. You can't talk about the cost of a device without amortising the R&D budget. The Quest may have a $500 material cost, but guruevi is far closer to the *actual* cost of producing it for you.
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The Quest 3 "commercial" edition, the one without tracking, costs ~$1200-2000 depending on the configuration and level of non-tracking you want, also costs a hefty yearly license cost to continue not tracking you.
Re: No one cares, literally (Score:2)
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Dude, I use these things in a healthcare environment, the HIPAA version has custom firmware not to call home and they are not cheap. Per device license costs for continued use of the firmware is $700/year. If you don't pay, the system can only update to the consumer firmware.
Hahahaha. Does anyone (Score:2)
Zuck makes his money selling ads and user data. That’s his bread and butter. Everything else he does rests on that foundation. Everything. Thus, he will let absolutely nothing will come between him and the user data. Nothing.
Oh, the data will be technically anonymized when it gets transferred from the headset to the company, thus meeting the letter of the law and blah blh blah I’m already bored. Their algorithms have a million way
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Believe the “anonymized” part? Anyone? Anyone?
You mean other than you?
Oh, the data will be technically anonymized
Besides, lots of data is just as valuable anonymous as it is associated with a person. Put differently, there is no value to having some kinds of data associated a person. For example, I'd bet they're starting to collect low-res images and point cloud data, given the importance modeling the user's environment is for AR applications.
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Given that the main use for VR headsets is VR porn, I wonder if customers will finally revolt over this.
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No one believes it's truly "anonymous." It's "anonymous" in a way, because it doesn't directly tie to your social security number and bank accounts, but it's absolutely tied to either the device or mac address or some other identifier or there's no point in collecting it. Because, ultimately, it WILL be used to target advertising at your eyeballs and earholes.
I'm shocked they haven't already been doing this! (Score:2)
Most software is built with telemetry baked in from the start. What took them so long?
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What the fuck era are we living in that lambda people on the web are saying this with a straight face.
Who really think they had not been collecting? (Score:2)
Hands up, who really think Meta had not been collecting all these data all the time already? This is the Facebook that builds shadow profiles of people who never logged into FB.
And, yeah, "anonymized", perhaps they just use your device ID rather than your name? LOL.
Deceit and subterfuge (Score:1)
> "for things like building better experiences and improving Meta Quest products for everyone"
> to "analyz[e] device performance and reliability" to "improve the hardware and software that powers your experiences with Meta VR Products."
Deceit and subterfuge.
Translation: To line our and our shareholders' pockets.
80% of these replies are from Meta (Score:2)
Blah, blah, blah...it's Meta (Score:1)
mystery data is puzzling (Score:2)
Puzzlingly, the data include odd jiggling of the right hand of male users visiting adult sites, which experts theorize to be related to exercises to develop selected arm muscles.
When have they NOT collected user data ??? (Score:2)
Now I want to buy one (Score:2)
Just to mess with the data collection system.
What's worse than no data? Poisoned data. A slew of crap that invalidates everything you have.
Server-Side Request Forgery (Score:1)