Scientists in Germany have demonstrated a startling new form of surveillance: identifying people using nothing more than ordinary WiFi signals. By analyzing how radio waves bounce around a room, researchers can effectively “see” and recognize individuals — even if they are not carrying a device and even if their phone is turned off.
My meta-quest 3s is constantly scanning my home floor plan and I’m sure it’s getting shipped off to “Big Surveillance”.
Arguably that’s a bit difference because to do that you have to explicitly do it (room setup) and you view the result (visual preview with semi-transparent triangles over your place). You can also read the ToS and I believe in some case specify if you allow the information to be sent back to the Meta. I’m not saying it’s OK, only that it’s explicit and it’s part of the “normal” usage of the device.
I also know that someone once demonstrated that you can do this with just a phone camera and it’s gyo and get pretty good results. That was back in 2016 before VR was much of a thing.
I guess these days you could just do it with a camera and generate a Splat from it.
A VR headset is basically a phone with lenses, so yes. That’s why cardboard and free promotional gifts of lenses snapping on phones work.
My point though isn’t about the technical abilities but rather about the social expectations. If you buy a device that does something intrusive but you know that in order to deliver the main value it will do that, it’s OK. It’s part of the social contract. If somehow though a device is intrusive but it’s not expected, either because it was thought to be impossible to do or unrelated to it’s original purpose or both, then it’s a big problem, a breach of the social contract.