JOAN O'HARA INTERVIEWS BRITTAN HELLER FOR FPF'S PRIVACY PAPERS FOR POLICYMAKERS EVENT

Last week, Joan O’Hara, XRA’s Senior Director of Public Policy, interviewed Brittan Heller as part of the Future of Privacy Forum’s Privacy Papers for Policymakers. Recently, Ms. Heller wrote Reimagining Reality: Human Rights and Immersive Technology for Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. The paper discusses the human rights implications of immersive technology, and focuses primarily on virtual reality. Because of the psychological and physiological aspects of immersive technologies, and the potential for a new invasive class of privacy-related harms, Ms. Heller argues that content creators, hardware producers, and lawmakers should take increased caution to protect users. She suggests this will help protect the nascent industry in a changing legal landscape and help ensure that the beneficial uses of this powerful technology outweigh the potential misuses.

In the session, Ms. O’Hara of XRA asked Heller about harassment in virtual reality, biometric psychography, and the need for a national privacy law.

Watch the full interview.