Extended Reality raises new concerns about privacy, addiction and the digital divide. Suggest a governance framework for India.

Extended Reality (XR) covers Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality. These technologies blend physical and digital worlds to create a sense of "presence" [1]. India's XR market is growing fast, and the move is from accessing digital services to experiencing them [1]. Its risks therefore need governance built in from the start, not added later.

New concerns raised by XR

• Privacy: Headsets record eye movement, gaze and body motion. This behavioural data can reveal health, emotions and identity, and goes far beyond what a phone collects.
• Addiction and well-being: Immersive environments can deepen screen dependence. Children face the greatest risk as creative-tech labs reach 15,000 secondary schools and 500 colleges [3].
• Digital divide: Only 67.4% of schools have internet and 69.9% have computers (UDISE+ 2025-26) [2]. Costly headsets and weak connectivity could favour already well-equipped urban schools.

Suggested governance framework

Rights → Safety → Equity → Institutions

• Privacy-by-design: Treat XR biometric and eye-tracking data as high-risk under rules made under the DPDP Act, 2023 [5]. Require verifiable parental consent for minors, data minimisation and on-device processing. Write these terms into vendor contracts for school labs.
• Child safety and digital well-being: Set age-appropriate design codes, session-time limits and well-being settings that are on by default. Issue Ministry of Education guidelines for classroom use.
• Equity-first rollout: Use UDISE+ data to supply connectivity and computers together with the labs [2]. Promote shared-lab models. Target Tier 2/3 towns and women, as the AVGC Promotion Task Force recommended [4].
• Institutional anchor: Create a National AVGC-XR Mission [4] with an inter-ministerial council (MIB, MeitY, MoE) to set standards. Add independent audits of learning, skilling and safety outcomes.
• Inclusive standards: Adopt open, interoperable standards. Make content accessible to persons with disabilities and available in Indian languages.

All three risks share one cause: the technology is spreading faster than its safeguards. A layered framework can let India use XR responsibly. That means DPDP-based privacy, child-safety norms and an equity-first rollout, coordinated under a National AVGC-XR Mission. Such a framework would advance SDG 4 (quality education) and uphold the constitutional right to privacy. XR would then widen opportunity instead of deepening exclusion.