XR4Human D3.2_Regulatory analysis

The report analyses relevant to XR EU legislations (twenty five in total), clustered into privacy and data, intellectually property, consumer and competition law, media and online services, cybersecurity, accessibility and non-discrimination, sectoral law, technology law, and finance law. The gap analysis highlights the scope, subjects, main provisions and applicability of each regulation to the XR sector. The challenges that XR technologies are faced with are discussed in terms of barriers, uncertainties and conflicting requirements in the existing regulatory landscape. The analysis reveals a multi-faceted regulatory framework impacting all entities and all sectors that provide XR products or services to the European market. XR technologies often introduce novel concerns or newer dimensions of existing concerns. The processing of biometric personal data, the potential of identity theft online or the role of data inequality, highlight the importance of technology-neutral laws that can accommodate these newer dimensions of normatively understood concerns. The pace of XR technological developments is overtaking the ability of policy making to offer adequate regulatory coverage of the issues they bring up to the forefront. There is therefore a need to foster adaptable regulations that can be readily updated in tandem with the development of XR technologies. The regulatory gap analysis provides the backbone for the forthcoming policy roadmap to ensure a comprehensive and ethical XR technology development.