How Virtual and Augmented Reality is Changing the Landscape of Law
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology has, in recent years, made it possible to do many things we could not have done before. You can watch live events from across the world, explore the Grand Canyon while getting in a workout, or travel to parts of the world you might otherwise never see.[1] The developments in this field are unlikely to slow down anytime soon. In fact, it is expected that these technologies will infiltrate our social lives, work, shopping, education, and psychotherapy.[2] But, as with all new technologies, we must ask ourselves how law can adapt and evolve to regulate VR and AR tech.
In order to understand how the law factors into all of this, first we have to understand exactly what AR and VR are. A recent example of AR tech is Pokémon GO, a very popular app that allows users to catch Pokémon in the real world and in different locations. In other words, “AR allows digital content to be layered over the real world.”[3] On the other hand there is VR, which puts users “inside a virtual environment, letting them move around in it and interact with it as if it were the real world.”[4]
There are various scenarios that could happen in VR or AR that would require legal input. For example, what happens if someone commits street crimes (e.g. “disturbing the peace, indecent exposure, deliberately harmful visuals (such as strobe lighting used to provoke seizures in people with epilepsy), and “virtual groping”) or a tort in VR?[5] [6] Or what if someone’s privacy is invaded through VR? Privacy is an especially large concern with VR and AR, because these devices can collect personal information as well as biometric data.[7] When you use a VR headset, information is also collected about the room you are in and your physical movements.[8] Another large concern with VR and AR is intellectual property (IP) rights. For instance, if content in a VR world contains brand-name products or images, does permission need to be granted for the branding to appear in the VR world?[9]
To some extent, the legal solutions we use now could be applied to VR or AR situations. For instance, if negligence or invasion of privacy occur in VR, it would be possible to some extent to apply the causes of action.[10] Some crimes committed in a VR or AR would lead to the same result as if the crime happened in the physical world. For example, “a death threat via AR or VR is legally the same as a death threat via an oral conversation, a letter, an email, or a fax.”[11] On the other hand, however, some conceptions and approaches to law must change in some way. There are also other questions that must be answered, for instance how regulation will happen when there is no easily discernible jurisdiction in VR. An even bigger question is how we treat crimes in VR, since these spaces are not actually ‘real’ – it feels real, but in actuality it is just an artificial environment.[12]
There are already some laws in place that aim to tackle the issues mentioned above. If a company intends to enter the European market for VR and AR technology, they must follow the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive as implemented by the European Union.[13] There are also, of course, country-specific regulations to be aware of. In the US, a few states have already implemented privacy laws that help regulate VR and AR technology, but there is no federal privacy law equivalent to the European GDPR.[14] There is a concern that, due to the lack of geographical barriers in the digital world, “a patchwork of state laws won’t work,” and “as […] augmented, virtual and mixed reality technologies continue to develop, we need to make sure that people understand their rights and how their personal information could be used.”[15]
There is also another inherent difficulty to regulating criminal behavior, which Lemley & Volokh (2018) refer to as the ‘Bangladesh problem’ (‘Bangladesh’ could be used as a placeholder for any country). If someone was screaming in a public place in the physical world, that would be seen as disturbing the peace, and the police would likely be called to intervene. Let’s say someone is screaming in a public place in a VR environment that is used for essential reasons – e.g. so that people can go to a VR store or to their VR jobs.[16] A user, let’s say Adam, watches this happen, then calls the police. The police officer asks for the address, and Adam says it is happening in VR. The officer asks where he really is, Adam says he is in his apartment. The officer asks where the person screaming is, and Adam says his IP address is in Bangladesh. The police officer hangs up. This example perfectly illustrates how difficult it would be to “get domestic police interested in investigating a crime where the criminal is in a foreign country”.[17] If the crime is more extreme, police may be more likely to get involved – but for street crimes like screaming in the street, there is not much to be done, at least with our current regulations. If there are no such regulations, it is very possible that VR and AR could be a breeding ground for petty crime.
Overall, it is still unclear how (and even if) the law will be able to adapt to digital worlds like VR and AR, and how this will differ throughout the world. It is often said that the law is far behind current issues as it takes such a long time for laws to become developed and enacted. Perhaps laws will simply develop ad-hoc as the need arises, although this means that for the time being, there are frighteningly little regulations (and hence consequences) for VR and AR companies, or users, who go astray.
[1] Brad Moon, ‘8 things you can do with virtual reality technology’ [2021] <> accessed 1 May 2022
[2] Mark A. Lemley, Eugene Volokh, ‘Law, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality’ [2018] University of Pennsylvania Law Review 166(5), <> accessed 2 May 2022, 1051, 1055
[3] Idem, 1054
[4] Idem, 1055
[5] Salar Atrizadeh, ‘Augmented and Virtual Reality Laws – Part 1’ [2021] <> accessed 1 May 2022
[6] Mark A. Lemley, Eugene Volokh, ‘Law, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality’ [2018] University of Pennsylvania Law Review 166(5), <> accessed 2 May 2022, 1052
[7] Salar Atrizadeh, ‘Augmented and Virtual Reality Laws – Part 1’ [2021] <> accessed 1 May 2022
[8] Makenzie Holland, ‘Calls for federal data privacy law grow alongside AR, VR use’ [2021] <> accessed 2 May 2022
[9] Edwards Creative Law, ‘Virtual Reality Issues – An Intro’ [2018] <> accessed 2 May 2022
[10] Salar Atrizadeh, ‘Augmented and Virtual Reality Laws – Part 1’ [2021] <> accessed 1 May 2022
[11] Mark A. Lemley, Eugene Volokh, ‘Law, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality’ [2018] University of Pennsylvania Law Review166(5), <> accessed 2 May 2022, 1056
[12] Ibid
[13] CBI Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Entering the European Market for VR and AR Services’ [2021] <> accessed 2 May 2022
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