Speakers:

• Dennis Bonilla | Baltu Studios
• Kristina Podnar | NativeTrust Consulting LLC
• Kavya Pearlman | XR Safety Initiative

As the world becomes increasingly connected, and immersive technologies gain wider adoption within government, business, and the consumer market, a framework for privacy, cybersecurity, and safety is necessary. From headsets to other wearables and related sensors, Extended Reality (XR) technologies are now capable of gathering untold quantities of biometric data about users, potentially everything from a user's location and skin color to their eye and hand positions at any given time. As we build the next version of the Internet/Web 3.0, also known as “The Metaverse,” it is vital that we take a proactive approach and address some fundamental design choices about the principles of how we want it to operate and avoid replicating or exacerbating what is broken about the Web today. The most disastrous elements that must be fixed are data ownership, confidentiality, and accountability. With this in mind, the XR Safety Initiative (XRSI) and many research partners such as the MITRE corporation are engaged in conducting research to propose a Privacy and Safety Framework that sets a baseline set of standards, guidelines, and best practices that are regulation agnostic.