International Workshop on Privacy and Security in Augmented, Virtual, and eXtended Realities
June 4th-7th, 2024 - Perth, Australia
Co-located with the 25th IEEE International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks (WoWMoM)

Extended realities (XR), including Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), are emerging technologies with a wide range of potential applications, including networking, gaming, healthcare, and education. However, as with any new technology, AR/VR also introduces new security and privacy challenges. AR and VR devices collect a wide range of personal data about users, including their physical movements, eye movements, and voice recordings. This data can be used to track users' activities, identify them, or even infer private attributes like health conditions or private preferences. Furthermore, XR applications integrate multiple modalities, such as audio, video, and haptic data streams, enlarging security and privacy exposure. Since XR applications mainly rely on wireless communication, defending them against overhearing, data breaches, and malicious actions is substantially challenging.


Scope of SePAR

The workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners from academia, industry, and society to discuss the latest advances in AR/VR security and privacy. We will cover a range of topics, including:

Security

Threats to AR/VR systems and applications, and defense mechanisms against these threats.

Privacy

Collection and use of personal data in AR/VR systems, user privacy controls, and privacy enhancing technologies.

Safety and Regulation

Legal and ethical implications of AR/VR, and potential regulatory frameworks.

In-Network Computing

The goal is to preserve user privacy as a default feature of networks

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Studies of disclosure threats in XR applications
  • Attacks on XR applications and users on the network level
  • Privacy and utility metrics in the context of VR and AR
  • Techniques for anonymization or removal of sensitive information from XR data streams
  • Privacy-enhancing techniques for XR networking traffic
  • Anomaly detection in encrypted XR traffic
  • Analysis of encryption protocols used in the context of XR on all network layers
  • Privacy policies in the context of XR applications
  • Privacy preservation as a virtualized network function
  • Programmable networks for delay-sensitive applications such as AR/XR
  • Human Rights and Online Safety in mixed reality
  • Propaganda, Mis- and Disinformation in mixed reality environments

The workshop will feature a mix of invited talks, contributed papers, and panel discussions. We encourage submissions of high-quality papers that present original research or practical experience in any area related to AR/VR security and privacy.


Important dates


Program


Chair:  Thorsten Strufe

2:10 pm - 2:40 pm — Effect of Duration and Delay on the Identifiability of VR Motion
Mark R Miller (Illinois Institute of Technology, USA); Vivek C Nair (UC Berkeley, USA); Eugy Han and Cyan DeVeaux (Stanford University, USA); Christian Rack (University of Würzburg, Germany); Rui Wang (Carnegie Mellon University, USA); Brandon Huang (UC Berkeley, USA); Marc Erich Latoschik (University of Würzburg, Germany); James F. O'Brien (University of California, Berkeley, USA); Jeremy N Bailenson (Stanford University, USA)

2:40 pm - 3:00 pm — Threats of Extended Reality (XR) Applications to Teaching and Learning: Instructors' Perspectives (short paper)
Aidrina Sofiadin (International Islamic University Malaysia & IIUM, Malaysia)

Chair:  Giang Nguyen

3:45 pm - 4:15 pm — Protecting Privacy: A Gateway to Freedom of Opinion and Expression in Virtual Reality
Hinako Sugiyama (International Justice Clinic at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, USA); Curtis Ferrarini and Eric Lau (University of California Irvine School of Law, USA)

4:15 pm - 4:35 pm — Effect of Data Degradation on Motion Re-Identification (short paper)
Vivek C Nair (UC Berkeley, USA); Mark R Miller (Illinois Institute of Technology, USA); Rui Wang (Carnegie Mellon University, USA); Brandon Huang (UC Berkeley, USA); Christian Rack and Marc Erich Latoschik (University of Würzburg, Germany); James F. O'Brien (University of California, Berkeley, USA)

4:35 pm - 5:05 pm — Towards Privacy-Preserving Mixed Reality: Legal and Technical Implications
Juliane Katherine Mendelsohn (Technical University Ilmenau, Germany); Stephan Werner (Technical University Ilmenau & Electronic Media Technology Group, Germany); Tobias Schwandt (Technical University Ilmenau, Germany); Philipp Richter (Technical University Ilmenau, Germany); Thomas Köllmer (Frauenhofer Institut IDMT, Germany); Wolfgang Broll (Technical University Ilmenau, Germany)

5:05 pm - 5:25 pm — Comparing Identification Accuracy Across Varying Classification Set Sizes with Multiclass AUC
Mark R Miller (Illinois Institute of Technology, USA)

5:25 pm - 5:30 pm — Wrap-up


Submission instructions

Full papers should be submitted in PDF format and should not exceed 6 pages in length (including figures and references), formatted in two-column IEEE conference style with font size 10 points or greater. See: IEEE Manuscript Templates for Conference Proceedings. Extended abstracts of up to two pages PDF will also be taken into consideration for publication. The style should adhere to above template. Papers should be original and unpublished work that is not currently under review for another conference or journal. Submissions should be made electronically through EDAS. All accepted papers will be presented at the workshop and require a registration at the conference for publication.


Organization

Program chairs

Giang T. Nguyen

Centre for Tactile Internet, CeTI, TU Dresden

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Stefanie Roos

University of Kaiserslautern

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Thorsten Strufe

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

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Technical Programme Committee

Name Affiliation
Patricia Arias-Cabarcos Universität Paderborn
Frederik Armknecht Universität Mannheim
Robin Berjon Protocol Labs
Christian Becker Universität Stuttgart
Aurélien Bellet INRIA Montpellier
Franziska Boehm Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure (FIZ)
Ulf Brefeld Leuphana Uni Lüneburg
Ana-Maria Cretu EPFL
Tung Doan TU Dresden
Mathias Fischer Uni Hamburg
Jordi Forné Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
Sébastien Gambs Université du Québec à Montréal
Oana Goga CNRS
Maria Gorlatova Duke University
Jaap-Henk Hoepman iHub and Radboud University Nijmegen
Dali Kaafar Macquarie University
Bailey Kacsmar University of Alberta
Jussi Kangasharju Helsinki University
Katharina Kaesling TU Dresden
Stefan Katzenbeisser Uni Passau
Aphra Kerr Maynooth University
Volkmar Lotz SAP
Mark Roman Miller Illinois Institute of Technology
Melek Önen EURECOM
Franziska Roesner University of Washington
Indra Spiecker, gen. Döhmann Universität Frankfurt
Anthony Steed University College London
Xiang Su Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Hinako Sugiyama International Justice Clinic, UC Irvine Law School
Florian Tschorsch Technical University Dresden
Xin Wang National Institute of Informatics
Christiane Weis NECLabs Europe
Limin Zheng Zhejiang University
Et al.

Web chair

Simon Hanisch

Centre for Tactile Internet, CeTI, TU Dresden

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Fritz Windisch

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

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General support and sponsorship