The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is meeting with Meta to discuss how its virtual reality (VR) company, Oculus, adheres to the regulator’s “children’s code.” The goal of the guideline is to ensure that online services that children are likely to access are appropriate for their use. In a popular third-party VR chat software, a campaign organization has discovered evidence of harassment of under-18s.
Meta claims to be working on integrating the code with the ICO. “We’re committed to satisfying our commitments under the code and offering age-appropriate experiences for young people,” the corporation stated.
Users of Oculus need to be over 13 years of age, and the firm’s guidance says: “Adults should monitor how their children… use Oculus devices.”
But crossbench peer Beeban Kidron, who is the architect of the children’s code, said she was concerned the checks were insufficient.
Recently, the issue of child safety in virtual reality was raised by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The campaign group looked at a popular third-party app called VRChat.
The app works on a number of platforms, including Oculus where it is available in the VR headset’s app store.
