2025-07-02 –, Theil CB-2 (118p)
What happens to our data and privacy if AI-powered XR glasses become everyday wear? What happens to our perception of ourselves and others if we can each customise and augment our reality —or be augmented by others?
Our panel of lawyers, policy researchers and industry practitioners will examine the data infrastructures of global-scale spatial computing and ask: who will own YOUR reality?
A recent controversy over a “chubby filter” on TikTok sparked calls for a ban. But what if other people could apply the “chubby” filter to YOUR body, live and in real-time, as they passed you on the street? What if they could do so in the privacy of their own glasses, without your knowledge or permission?
The world’s most powerful companies are investing billions into physical-digital infrastructures built on scans of the real world. Companies like Niantic are already training world-mapping AIs on datasets contributed by millions of users. And soon, all-day-wear reality-augmenting glasses may enable consumers to view the world through AI-powered filters and reskins. In the words of Niantic’s CEO, consumers might be able to “theme the world like it’s Nintendo everywhere.”
But unlike the protocols underpinning the Internet, the infrastructure for global-scale spatial computing will likely be proprietary and profit-driven - and it is already being built.
Companies who supply the technology to augment reality are likely to provide it cheaply or freely in exchange for user data - data about users’ biometrics, data about the world around them, and maybe even data about any bystanders nearby. Will these spatial computing platforms have any incentive to regulate their technology, or to protect the privacy, safety and identity rights of users and bystanders?
In this context, our panel will debate the power dynamic between individuals and businesses, and discuss rights - not only regarding datasets themselves, but rights over how the world around us is graphically augmented, and whether we can effectively control how others augment us.
Bringing perspectives from industry, policy and law from across Europe, our panel will examine the sociocultural impact of the current geospatial data “land grab” and the XR+AI technologies it will power. Drawing on the work of XR4Human and EU initiatives, we’ll provide concrete calls-to-action for attendees to help shape European policy.
Alina is a scientific employee at the Applied University of Mittweida, focusing on XR research and EU grants.
Alina specialises in spatial computing and XR research, leveraging the creation of a human-centered future in computing while contributing to publications and standards.
She’s also a founding board member of theSafeZone, an initiative helping teenagers overcome mental health challenges with VR, immersive technology, and quick access to therapists, and a founding member of XRSI Europe.
Alina set up and has been leading the EU activities of Open AR Cloud Europe gUG as managing director through EU-funded research projects like NGI Atlantic, NGI Search and the recently Horizon Europe-funded project XR4Human.
Kelsey Farish is a technology and media lawyer with a focus on digital identity, generative AI, and the legal implications of synthetic audiovisual content. Her work examines how emerging technologies shape (and reshape) our understanding of self, privacy, and representation.
Kelsey advises clients across the media and entertainment industries, from broadcasters and streamers to creators and brands, helping them navigate complex rights frameworks in a fast-changing technological landscape. With a background in both legal practice and cultural commentary, she connects the dots between regulation, storytelling, and the power structures behind how we’re seen - and how we see each other.
She is considered to be a leading legal expert on digital modification of the human form and in addition to her day job as a lawyer, she is a peer-reviewed academic who published one of the first papers on deepfakes in the context of publicity and performers’ rights in 2019. Most recently, she co-authored a chapter on influencer marketing and social media regulation in The Handbook of Fashion Law (Oxford University Press, 2024), exploring how platforms and advertising shape cultural norms around body image, truth, and digital modification.