Demonstrating the X-Metaverse @ Grand Front Osaka The LAB
From Nov. 30th to Dec. 4th, 2023, the X-Metaverse System will be showcased in a demo exhibition at The LAB, Grand Front Osaka.
Events & Projects
Journal · 2024
Visual Privacy Control for Metaverse and the Beyond
Abstract
Metaverse technologies are transforming how distant individuals interact in immersive virtual environments. These technologies, in combination with the latest developments in 3D sensing, will create a hybrid metaverse blending virtual and physical spaces. However, high-resolution 3D sensing poses privacy risks from unrestricted spatial data sharing. It may inadvertently expose the human visual appearance and private objects and spaces in the users’ physical environments to the shared metaverse. To mitigate these challenges, this article surveys the visual privacy issues in the era of the metaverse. It then introduces a visual privacy control method enabling privacy protection in the current metaverse and beyond. Our goal is to empower users to control the visual privacy of spatial objects by comprehending their inherent semantics. The design allows users to define their privacy protection levels or, if preferred, delegate this responsibility to an automated control system. We present two use-case scenarios to demonstrate this concept.
Research Note
Metaverse technologies are changing how distant individuals interact in immersive virtual environments, and combined with recent developments in 3D sensing they will produce a hybrid metaverse that blends virtual and physical space. High-resolution 3D sensing brings privacy risks with it, because sharing spatial data without restriction can inadvertently expose private objects and spaces in a user's physical environment, along with the visual appearance of the people there.
Visual privacy concerns what leaks through being captured in imagery or 3D data. It sits at a different layer from location privacy or the confidentiality of communication content, and it cannot be controlled without understanding what is being seen, since whether an object on a shelf should be hidden depends on what that object is.
This article surveys the visual privacy issues that arise in the era of the metaverse, and then introduces a visual privacy control method for protecting privacy in the current metaverse and beyond. The goal is to let users control the visual privacy of spatial objects by comprehending their inherent semantics. The design allows users either to define their own level of protection or to delegate that responsibility to an automated control system. Two use-case scenarios are presented to illustrate the concept.
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