2024/07/03 by Emmie Hine, Isadora Neroni Rezende, H Roberts +3 · 1 voice
Computer Science · Social Sciences · #Blockchain Technology Applications and Security #Ethics and Social Impacts of AI #Privacy, Security, and Data Protection
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s44206-024-00114-1
openalex publication_date 2024/07/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Abstract Extended reality (XR) technologies have experienced cycles of development—“summers” and “winters”—for decades, but their overall trajectory is one of increasing uptake. In recent years, immersive extended reality (IXR) applications, a kind of XR that encompasses immersive virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) environments, have become especially prevalent. The European Union (EU) is exploring regulating this type of technology, and this article seeks to support this endeavor. It outlines safety and privacy harms associated with IXR, analyzes to what extent the existing EU framework for digital governance—including the General Data Protection Regulation, Product Safety Legislation, ePrivacy Directive, Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, and AI Act—addresses these harms, and offers some recommendations to EU legislators on how to fill regulatory gaps and improve current approaches to the governance of IXR.