Oculus: Users don’t have to worry about privacy

A US senator has questioned Oculus in response to reports that the company stores a variety of user data. The company wants to respond substantively to the questions, but first and foremost that users need not worry.

Jason Rubin, head of the Oculus studio, responded to Senator Al Franken’s questions that there are always ambiguities with a new product. “It’s a new medium. People like to know everything, and they have a right to it. We’re going to answer. Everything will be fine.” He added that once the questions are answered, people will say, “Oh. Yeah. Right.”

Franken wants to get more information about the data that Oculus collects with his questions. Recently it turned out that, for example, data about user movements is sent to the Oculus servers. It is also included in the terms of use of the Facebook subsidiary that data such as an IP address and GPS signals may be stored. HTC’s Vive also appears to collect such data. The senator states that ‘the information may be used to create a better user experience, but that there must be sufficient protection for the personal data of Americans’.

Earlier this month, Oculus answered some of the complaints about terms of use. In a response, the company stated that content created by users remains the property of those users. The terms stated that Oculus would acquire all rights to such content. The company also said that no data is shared with Facebook and that only the infrastructure of the parent company is used. However, this could change in the future, according to Oculus, for example in the context of showing advertisements. Franken has given the company until May 13 to provide a substantive response.