The world's most expensive VR headset may be spying on you for Facebook!
Exactly two years ago, when Facebook bought Oculus VR for $2 billion, it was thought to be a matter of time before the Oculus Rift would become part of its biggest advertising push.
Now that the Oculus Rift is officially available to users, it appears that Facebook is indeed using the headset to further its advertising. Reddit user Woofington discovered that an “always on” service running in the background of the Oculus Rift software is sending information from the headset back to Facebook’s servers.
Woofington writes in a Reddit forum that after installing the Oculus software on the device, a full system-privileged process called OVRServer_x64.exe would detect and send data to the website's servers when the device was turned on. Woofington discovered that up to 7MB/s of data was being sent from his device, even after closing Oculus Home.
If you thought the Oculus Rift privacy policy would help you deal with this spying, you're wrong. In fact, the Oculus Rift privacy policy takes user consent, in its terms and conditions, which state that it can send user data to third parties.
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 address and “certain device identifiers that may be unique to your device,” a device’s precise location based on GPS signals, Wi-Fi networks, and information about a user’s “physical movements and dimensions” when using the headset.
The privacy policy explicitly states that “third parties may also collect information about you through the Services,” according to UploadVR.
