September 17, 2025
Privacy and accessibility are intimately intertwined. Technologies like facial recognition and real-time captioning offer incredible utility and independence to people with disabilities, but they come with intrinsic privacy risks. Join us for a community discussion on privacy and accessibility in the context of VR, along with featured speakers Dr. Brendan David-John of Virginia Tech and Alex Ambrose of ITIF.
Open Questions:
- How can we utilize technologies like facial recognition and captioning with the minimum risk to privacy?
- How can we trust organizations that say our recordings will not be stored?
- How should expectations of privacy be changing in the era of AR?
- What risks to privacy do we face from XR body tracking?
If you require accessibility accommodations such as American Sign Language interpretation, please email info@xraccess.org no fewer than 72 hours before the event.
Event Details
Date: Wed September 17, 2025
Time: 10am – 11:30am PT | 1pm – 2:30pm ET
Location: Zoom
About the Speakers
Alex Ambrose
Policy Analyst, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Alex is a policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the world’s leading think tank for science and technology policy. Her portfolio covers digital policy including emerging technologies such as augmented and virtual reality, biometrics, spatial computing, and the metaverse, in addition to children’s online safety, social media, and privacy.
Brendan David-John
Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech
David-John is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. He was the first Native American male to graduate with a doctorate in Computer Science from the University of Florida in 2022, and received his BS and MS from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2017. His research interests include virtual reality and eye tracking and he was awarded the IEEE VGTC Best VR Dissertation Award in 2025.
