Original title: SoK: Motion Data Privacy in Extended Reality
Azim Ibragimov, Alina Vasina, Uliana Polshcha, Eric D. Ragan · September 2026
Extended reality headsets create immersive 3D worlds. To do this, they must constantly track your body movements so you can grab, look at, or move virtual objects. The problem is that tracking records your unique motion patterns. These patterns can reveal sensitive personal details about you, creating a serious conflict between basic headset features and user privacy. Because headsets make this data much easier to gather, researchers organized and reviewed 134 papers specifically focused on motion privacy. They looked at how attackers collect this tracking data, the private inferences attackers can draw from it, and ways to protect users. From these studies, the researchers mapped out the different types of motion data and risks, built a model of potential threats, and sorted known attacks and defenses. Finally, they pointed out missing areas in current research and shared guidelines to help future studies test protective privacy tools.
Imagine signing your name on a pad at a store. Normally it's just to confirm a purchase, but your signature is unique and can be copied to forge your identity later. Here, every movement you make in a virtual world is like that signature—it's recorded to let you interact, but it also reveals who you are and what you're doing. The paper catalogues all the ways those signatures can be stolen, what they can reveal, and how to keep them private.
Anyone using an XR headset for work or recreation generates a unique motion fingerprint. This data can be stolen or misused to infer sensitive traits like identity, health conditions, or emotions. The paper maps these risks and the defenses available, helping users and developers understand what's at stake.
This SoK does not introduce new attacks or defenses; it surveys existing work. Its recommendations are for future evaluations, not immediate solutions. The review covers motion data from headsets primarily, leaving out other XR form factors.
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SoK: Motion Data Privacy in Extended Reality — Azim Ibragimov, Alina Vasina, Uliana Polshcha et al.
Abstract licence: CC0
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.