{"id":930,"date":"2022-08-18T16:31:23","date_gmt":"2022-08-18T16:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/jain\/?page_id=930"},"modified":"2026-04-17T18:29:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T22:29:53","slug":"privacy-and-security-in-eye-tracking","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/jain\/research\/privacy-and-security-in-eye-tracking\/","title":{"rendered":"Privacy and Security in Eye Tracking"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: left\">Abstract<\/h2>\n<blockquote><p>As eye tracking systems become integrated with emerging technology platforms such as Virtual and Augmented Reality displays individuals&#8217; gaze data will be captured and recorded at an unprecendented scale. While this rich and powerful data enables new applications that improve our quality of life, it also introduces novel security and privacy considerations. Our research proposes technology solutions that address these considerations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Current work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation under award ID\u00a0\u00a0<a class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nsf.gov\/awardsearch\/showAward?AWD_ID=2206950&amp;HistoricalAwards=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-stringify-link=\"https:\/\/www.nsf.gov\/awardsearch\/showAward?AWD_ID=2206950&amp;HistoricalAwards=false\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">#2206950<\/a>.<br \/>\nPrior work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under award ID <a href=\"http:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/temporalinterestingness\/nsf-1566481.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#1566481<\/a> .<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left\">Outreach and Dissemination<\/h2>\n<h3 class=\"page-title text-center\">PAPER NOMINATED AS A BEST JOURNAL PAPER AT IEEE VR<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cise.ufl.edu\/paper-nominated-as-a-best-journal-paper-at-ieee-vr\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.cise.ufl.edu\/paper-nominated-as-a-best-journal-paper-at-ieee-vr\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-responsive aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/img\/eyetracking_nomination_img.png\" alt=\"Brendan\" width=\"50%\" height=\"auto\" \/><\/h3>\n<h4 class=\"page-title text-center\">Mailing List<\/h4>\n<p>Join the discussion on the international listserv. Send an email to\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:listserv@lists.ufl.edu\">LISTSERV@LISTS.UFL.EDU<\/a>\u00a0with the following in the body:\u00a0<b>SUBSCRIBE PRIVACY-AND-SECURITY-XR-L &lt;Firstname Lastname&gt;<\/b>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left\">PROJECTS<\/h2>\n<h3 id=\"record-title\" class=\"wrap-overflowing-text\">Toward Multimodal Privacy in XR: Design and Evaluation of Composite Privatization Methods for Gaze and Body Tracking Data<\/h3>\n<h4 class=\"wrap-overflowing-text\">&#8220;Toward Multimodal Privacy in XR: Design and Evaluation of Composite Privatization Methods for Gaze and Body Tracking Data&#8221;, Ibragimov, Azim AND Wilson, Ethan and Butler, Kevin and Jain, Eakta. IEEE VR (2026).<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2506.13882\">Paper<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 id=\"record-title\" class=\"wrap-overflowing-text\">Privacy-Preserving Gaze Data Streaming in Immersive Interactive Virtual Reality: Robustness and User Experience<\/h3>\n<div class=\"embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Privacy-Preserving Gaze Data Streaming in Immersive Interactive Virtual Reality\" src=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1oV2vKqdqwh5pAoYKqd8eYX-oZGSeOYkR\/preview\" width=\"80%\" height=\"auto\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h4 class=\"wrap-overflowing-text\">&#8220;Privacy-Preserving Gaze Data Streaming in Immersive Interactive Virtual Reality: Robustness and User Experience&#8221;, Wilson, Ethan and Ibragimov, Azim and Proulx, Michael and Tetali, Sai Deep and Butler, Kevin and Jain, Eakta. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (2024).<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ieeexplore.ieee.org\/document\/10464194\">Paper<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/zenodo.org\/records\/10475456\">Dataset<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Bibtex entry<br \/>\n@ARTICLE{10464194,<br \/>\nauthor={Wilson, Ethan and Ibragimov, Azim and Proulx, Michael J. and Tetali, Sai Deep and Butler, Kevin and Jain, Eakta},<br \/>\njournal={IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},<br \/>\ntitle={Privacy-Preserving Gaze Data Streaming in Immersive Interactive Virtual Reality: Robustness and User Experience},<br \/>\nyear={2024},<br \/>\nvolume={30},<br \/>\nnumber={5},<br \/>\npages={2257-2268},<br \/>\n}<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Privacy-preserving datasets of eye-tracking samples with applications in XR<\/h3>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Privacy-preserving datasets of eye-tracking samples with applications in XR\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nNGx6xgXwXo\" width=\"560\" height=\"314\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h4>&#8220;Privacy-preserving datasets of eye-tracking samples with applications in XR&#8221;, David-John, Brendan and Butler, Kevin and Jain, Eakta. <em>IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (2023)<\/em>.<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/jain\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/745\/2023\/03\/2023_IEEE_VR_sample_privacy_datasets.pdf\">Paper (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/bmdj-vt.github.io\/assets\/pdfs\/2023_IEEE_VR_sample_privacy_datasets_supp.pdf\">Supplementary (pseudo-code)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1109\/TVCG.2023.3247048\">IEEE DOI<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Bibtex entry:<br \/>\n@ARTICLE{davidjohn2023tvcg,<br \/>\nauthor={David-John, Brendan and Butler, Kevin and Jain, Eakta},<br \/>\njournal={IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},<br \/>\ntitle={Privacy-preserving datasets of eye-tracking samples with applications in XR},<br \/>\nyear={2023},<br \/>\nvolume={},<br \/>\nnumber={},<br \/>\npages={1-11},<br \/>\ndoi={10.1109\/TVCG.2023.3247048}}<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"page-title text-center\">For Your Eyes Only: Privacy-preserving eye-tracking datasets<\/h3>\n<div class=\"embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"For Your Eyes Only: Privacy-preserving eye-tracking datasets\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MrCt04v_llM\" width=\"80%\" height=\"auto\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h4>&#8220;For Your Eyes Only: Privacy-preserving eye-tracking datasets&#8221;, David-John, Brendan and Butler, Kevin and Jain, Eakta. ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research &amp; Applications (ETRA 22).<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/documents\/etra_privacy_2022_accepted_version.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Paper (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/documents\/etra_privacy_2022_poster.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Poster (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/documents\/etra_privacy_2022_supplementary.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Supplementary Material (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/publications.html#EDaPT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dataset<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Bibtex entry:<br \/>\n@inproceedings{davidjohn2021etra,<br \/>\nauthor={David-John, Brendan and Butler, Kevin and Jain, Eakta},<br \/>\ntitle={For Your Eyes Only: Privacy-preserving eye-tracking datasets},<br \/>\nbooktitle={ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications},<br \/>\nyear={2022},<br \/>\n}<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"page-title text-center\">Let\u2019s SOUP up XR: Collected thoughts from an IEEE VR workshop on privacy in mixed reality<\/h3>\n<div class=\"media\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/img\/prxr_figure.PNG\" alt=\"teaser-figure\" width=\"80%\" height=\"auto\" \/><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;Let\u2019s SOUP up XR: Collected thoughts from an IEEE VR workshop on privacy inmixed reality&#8221;, Brendan David-John, Diane Hosfelt, Kevin Butler, Eakta Jain, VR4Sec: 1st International Workshop on Security for XR and XR for Security (2021).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/documents\/VR4Sec_2021.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Paper (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/documents\/2021_soups_slides.pptx\">Slides<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Bibtex entry:<br \/>\n@inproceedings{davidjohn2021soups,<br \/>\nauthor={David-John, Brendan and Hosfelt, Diane and Butler, Kevin and Jain, Eakta},<br \/>\ntitle={Let\u2019s SOUP up XR: Collected Thoughts From an IEEE VR Workshop on Privacy in Mixed Reality},<br \/>\nbooktitle={VR4Sec: 1st International Workshop on Security for XR and XR for Security},<br \/>\npages={1&#8211;6},<br \/>\nyear={2021},<br \/>\n}<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"page-title text-center\">A Privacy-Preserving Approach to Streaming Eye-Tracking Data<\/h3>\n<h4 class=\"page-header text-center\">Best Paper Nominee<\/h4>\n<div class=\"embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Best Paper Nominee\" src=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/embed\/Hk3PFkXfDh4\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h4>&#8220;A privacy-preserving approach to streaming eye-tracking data&#8221;, Brendan David-John, Diane Hosfelt, Kevin Butler, Eakta Jain, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG 2021) Special Issue on IEEE VR.<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2102.01770\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Paper (preprint)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/documents\/2021_IEEE_VR_slides.pptx\">Slides<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/zenodo.org\/record\/4642612\">Dataset (ZIP)<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Bibtex entry:<br \/>\n@article{davidjohn2021privacy,<br \/>\ntitle={A privacy-preserving approach to streaming eye-tracking data},<br \/>\nauthor={David-John, Brendan and Hosfelt, Diane and Butler, Kevin and Jain, Eakta},<br \/>\njournal={IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},<br \/>\nyear={2021},<br \/>\npublisher={IEEE}<br \/>\n}<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"page-title text-center\">Let It Snow: Adding pixel noise to protect the user\u2019s identity<\/h3>\n<h4><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/img\/snow_circuit_diagram_cropped.jpg\" alt=\"Modified circuit diagram for snow\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" \/><br \/>\n&#8220;Let It Snow: Adding pixel noise to protect the user\u2019s identity&#8221;, Brendan John, Ao Liu, Lirong Xia, Sanjeev Koppal, Eakta Jain, Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA \u201920 Adjunct)<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/documents\/prethics_2020_preprint.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Paper (preprint)<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Bibtex entry:<br \/>\n@inproceedings{john2020snow,<br \/>\ntitle={Let It Snow: Adding pixel noise to protect the user\u2019s identity},<br \/>\nauthor={John, Brendan and Liu, Ao and Xia, Lirong and Koppal, Sanjeev and Jain, Eakta},<br \/>\nbooktitle = {Adjunt Proceedings of the 12th ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research \\&amp; Applications},<br \/>\nseries = {ETRA &#8217;20 Adjunct},<br \/>\nyear = {2020},<br \/>\nlocation = {Stuttgart, Germany},<br \/>\nisbn = {978-1-4503-7135-3},<br \/>\npages = {1&#8211;3},<br \/>\narticleno = {43},<br \/>\nnumpages = {3},<br \/>\nurl = {https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3379157.3390512},<br \/>\ndoi = {10.1145\/3379157.3390512},<br \/>\npublisher = {ACM},<br \/>\naddress = {New York, NY, USA},<br \/>\nkeywords = {privacy, eye tracking, iris recognition},<br \/>\n}<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"page-title text-center\">The Security-Utility Trade-off for Iris Authentication and Eye Animation for Social Virtual Avatars<\/h3>\n<div class=\"embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Security-Utility Trade-off for Iris Authentication and Eye Animation for Social Virtual Avatars\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bCVoeXLw4B4\" width=\"80%\" height=\"auto\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"width: 0px;overflow: hidden;line-height: 0\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h4>&#8220;The Security-Utility Trade-off for Iris Authentication and Eye Animation for Social Virtual Avatars&#8221;, Brendan John, Sanjeev Koppal, Sophie J\u00f6rg, Eakta Jain, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG 2020) Special Issue on IEEE VR.<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/documents\/IEEE_VR_2020_TVCG_preprint.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Paper (preprint)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/documents\/2020_IEEE_VR_slides.pptx\">Slides<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Bibtex entry:<br \/>\n@article{john2020security,<br \/>\ntitle={The Security-Utility Trade-off for Iris Authentication and Eye Animation for Social Virtual Avatars},<br \/>\nauthor={John, Brendan and J{\\&#8221;o}rg, Sophie and Koppal, Sanjeev and Jain, Eakta},<br \/>\njournal={IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},<br \/>\nvolume={26},<br \/>\nnumber={5},<br \/>\npages={1880&#8211;1890},<br \/>\nyear={2020},<br \/>\npublisher={IEEE}<br \/>\n}<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"page-title text-center\">EyeVEIL: Degrading Iris Authentication in Eye Tracking Headsets<\/h3>\n<div class=\"embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"EyeVEIL: Degrading Iris Authentication in Eye Tracking Headsets\" src=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/documents\/ETRA_iris_identification_supplementary_video_2nd.mp4\" width=\"80%\" height=\"auto\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h4>&#8220;EyeVEIL: Degrading Iris Authentication in Eye Tracking Headsets&#8221;, Brendan John, Sanjeev Koppal, Eakta Jain.<em>\u00a0In Proceedings of ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research &amp; Applications (ETRA&#8217;19).<\/em><\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/documents\/2019_ETRA_pre_print_eyeVEIL.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Paper (preprint)<\/a>\u00a0(PDF &#8211; 1,115KB)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/documents\/2019_ETRA_iris_poster.pdf\">Poster<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Bibtex entry:<br \/>\n@inproceedings{John2019,<br \/>\nauthor = {John, Brendan and Koppal, Sanjeev and Jain, Eakta},<br \/>\ntitle = {EyeVEIL: Degrading Iris Authentication in Eye Tracking Headsets},<br \/>\nbooktitle = {Proceedings of the 11th ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research \\&amp; Applications},<br \/>\nseries = {ETRA &#8217;19},<br \/>\nyear = {2019},<br \/>\nisbn = {978-1-4503-6709-7},<br \/>\nlocation = {Denver, Colorado},<br \/>\npages = {37:1&#8211;37:5},<br \/>\narticleno = {37},<br \/>\nnumpages = {5},<br \/>\nurl = {http:\/\/doi.acm.org\/10.1145\/3314111.3319816},<br \/>\ndoi = {10.1145\/3314111.3319816},<br \/>\nacmid = {3319816},<br \/>\npublisher = {ACM},<br \/>\naddress = {New York, NY, USA},<br \/>\nkeywords = {eye tracking, iris recognition, mixed reality, security},<br \/>\n}<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"page-title text-center\">Differential Privacy for Eye Tracking Data<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/img\/differential_privacy.PNG\" alt=\"privacy enhanced heatmap\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<h4>&#8220;Differential Privacy for Eye Tracking Data&#8221;, Ao Liu, Lirong Xia, Andrew Duchowski, Reynold Bailey, Kenneth Holmqvist, Eakta Jain.\u00a0<em>In Proceedings of ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research &amp; Applications (ETRA&#8217;19).<\/em><\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/jainlab.cise.ufl.edu\/documents\/Revised_2019_ETRA_DP.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Paper (preprint)<\/a>\u00a0(PDF &#8211; 1,201KB)<\/li>\n<li>Bibtex entry:<br \/>\n@inproceedings{Liu2019,<br \/>\nauthor = {Liu, Ao and Xia, Lirong and Duchowski, Andrew and Bailey, Reynold and Holmqvist, Kenneth and Jain, Eakta},<br \/>\ntitle = {Differential Privacy for Eye-tracking Data},<br \/>\nbooktitle = {Proceedings of the 11th ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research \\&amp; Applications},<br \/>\nseries = {ETRA &#8217;19},<br \/>\nyear = {2019},<br \/>\nisbn = {978-1-4503-6709-7},<br \/>\nlocation = {Denver, Colorado},<br \/>\npages = {28:1&#8211;28:10},<br \/>\narticleno = {28},<br \/>\nnumpages = {10},<br \/>\nurl = {http:\/\/doi.acm.org\/10.1145\/3314111.3319823},<br \/>\ndoi = {10.1145\/3314111.3319823},<br \/>\nacmid = {3319823},<br \/>\npublisher = {ACM},<br \/>\naddress = {New York, NY, USA},<br \/>\nkeywords = {differential privacy, eye-tracking, heatmaps, privacy-utility tradeoff},<br \/>\n}<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<div class=\"panel-heading\">\n<h4 class=\"panel-title\">Copyright notice<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"panel-body\">\n<p>Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the owner\/author(s).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Abstract As eye tracking systems become integrated with emerging technology platforms such as Virtual and Augmented Reality displays individuals&#8217; gaze data will be captured and recorded at an unprecendented scale. While this rich and powerful data enables new applications that improve our quality of life, it also introduces novel security and privacy considerations. Our research [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1299,"featured_media":0,"parent":2181,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/page-section-nav.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-930","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/jain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/jain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/jain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/jain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/jain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=930"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/jain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2449,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/jain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/930\/revisions\/2449"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/jain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/jain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}