Oculus responds to Rift privacy policy concerns

When Oculus was first bought by Facebook, the reaction was fairly negative and while things have settled down a lot since then, recently the Oculus Rift began shipping and unfortunately, not everyone is happy with the Oculus privacy policy. The policy says that Oculus can collect user data ranging from games you play to information on your physical movements while wearing the headset.

This data is collected by a process called OVRServer_x64.exe, which is always on and has full system privileges to send information back to Facebook. This information is then used to “send you promotional messages and content and otherwise market to you on and off our services”.

UploadVR got in touch with Oculus to get a statement from the company, which emailed back saying: “We want to create the absolute best VR experience for people, and to do that, we need to understand how our products are being used and we’re thinking about privacy every step of the way. The Oculus privacy policy was drafted so we could be very clear with the people who use our services about the ways we receive or collect information, and how we may use it. For example, one thing we may do is use information to improve our services and to make sure everything is working properly — such as checking device stability and addressing technical issues to improve the overall experience.”

“Facebook owns Oculus and helps run some Oculus services, such as elements of our infrastructure, but we’re not sharing information with Facebook at this time. We don’t have advertising yet and Facebook is not using Oculus data for advertising – though these are things we may consider in the future.”

KitGuru Says: People have been having privacy issues with Facebook for some time and now this seems to be spreading to Oculus. However, perhaps Oculus's response will offer some explanation for some users. 

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