Ian Taylor Logan
ABSTRACT
Eye tracking has existed as an important tool in numerous fields since
the 1950s. Today, eye tracking hardware is smaller, cheaper, and more
accurate than ever. As a result, eye tracking is anticipated to be ubiquitous
within Virtual Reality (VR) headsets as a way to increase calibration
accuracy, as well as the user’s sense of immersion. Despite the importance
of eye tracking data to the fields of marketing, behavioral science, and
neuroscience, sparse literature has been published regarding the privacy
implications of collecting such data from unwary consumers in an age
where the collection of data through Internet-connected devices is largely
unregulated. The purpose of this Comment is twofold: (1) to highlight a
few of the numerous types of sensitive information that can be derived
from eye-tracking data, and (2) to demonstrate an urgent requirement for
legislation that comprehensively protects biometric identifiers from sale
and exploitation.
The current pace of legislative enactment (itself a dramatic foil to the
explosive rate of technological innovation) indicates that the best way to
promote user privacy as well as innovation is to promulgate laws that
create a right of personal privacy in biometric identifiers, instead of laws
that regulate technology. Several statutes designed to regulate technology,
rather than protecting the data it can collect, have proven that such
schemes are minimally effective at best, and require constant amendment
and re-negotiation to the point of impotence. This Comment argues that if
privacy rights are established regarding biometric identifiers,
technological innovation will be welcomed with less friction, allowing for more rapid growth in a market supported by eager and informed consumers.