Biosensor-Instrumented xR Headsets: A Double-Edged Sword for User Identity and Privacy Management in the Metaverse

Augmented and virtual reality headsets instrumented with physiological sensors are emerging in the market to allow for real-time user experience monitoring and optimization. The collected biosignals, such as electroencephalography (EEG) or photoplethysmography, may convey a lot of information about the user, such as their identity, age, gender, race, or even psychological/health state. While on one hand access to such information may raise serious privacy concerns, on the other, it opens up a new avenue of authentication and access control for the metaverse. In this work, we show some preliminary results on user identity detection based on EEG signals captured while the user was performing arm movement gestures akin to those done while interacting with virtual content in extended reality. User detection accuracy substantially larger than chance was observed, suggesting its potential use for access control and authentication. We conclude with some suggestions for future research on physiological signal anonymization as a means to reduce concerns around user privacy in the metaverse.