Eight Ethical Considerations for Using VR in the Courtroom - and how to Mitigate the Risks.
We were delighted to hear about the recent use of a virtual reality (VR) visualisation used by United States Broward County Judge Andrew Siegel to resolve a Stand-your-Ground case (more information here). This VR experience, alongside our own legal VR innovations going back to 2016, help to demonstrate the wide and practical applications that immersive and interactive 3D visualisation can have in settlement, courtroom and trial proceedings - in turn, providing an innovative approach to presenting (potentially complex and technical) evidence. Whilst this technology has potential to impact legal proceedings globally, we have found it also raises significant ethical and practical considerations.
From our research into the public and legal community response to the case, alongside our own conversations and experiences, we have identified a number of concerns and objections to the use of VR in a legal context which we hope to address here. In addition, it is our hope we are also able to add value to the real conversation which exists around the intersection of technology, design and ethics in law - a conversation that is just beginning and should rightly be engaged with by both the legal community and creative technologists in a critical and constructive way.
For each of the below, we will outline the issue and its ethical implications, before providing our thoughts on risk mitigation and considerations for the future.
1. Memory Manipulations
The Issue:
When VR is employed in legal settings, there's a profound concern that the immersive nature of the technology could create memories that participants perceive as real experiences; and in turn, that this effect has the potential to influence judgement and decision-making, leading to biased outcomes. The belief is that the vividness and emotional impact of VR can make the visualised scenarios feel authentic, which may unduly sway judges and jurors.
Ethical Implications:
The use of VR as a memory creator poses significant ethical questions. It challenges the integrity of the legal process by potentially distorting recollections and perceptions. Such manipulations could profoundly alter the fairness of trials, as parties may not only judge the events based on facts but also on vividly implanted memories.
Future Considerations:
Continued research and dialogue with psychologists, technologists, and legal experts are essential to develop the guidelines and the protocols that safeguard against the misuse of VR in legal environments.
We firmly believe that establishing standards for ethical VR and real-time 3D usage in courtrooms and other legal procedings will be crucial as this technology becomes more prevalent.
Mitigating the Risk:
Our approach here is simple; only visualise what you know to be true. Any time there is any ambiguity around any aspect of the simulation, it should be noted and presented as such. This could take the form of blacking out an object, or the entire scene for a period of time, for example.
At a base level, it is vital to clearly label any unknown element as being simulated, with additional explicit indications throughout the visualisation re-enforcing to the user that the overall VR content and experience is a reconstruction; created based solely on available data and evidence that is known to be true.
Additional approaches that we suggest to mitigate memory manipulation risks include:
Educational Briefings:
Providing judges, jurors, and legal professionals with training and informational sessions about the nature of VR technology and its psychological impacts helps them to understand the potential for VR to influence memory and judgement.
Balanced Use:
We advocate for the use of VR not as standalone evidence but as a supplementary tool to be used alongside traditional forms of evidence. Keeping this in mind thereby reduces the risk of over-reliance on VR-created “memories”.
Peer Review:
Implementing a peer review process for all VR scenarios used in legal contexts ensures accuracy and objectivity, preventing the introduction of any biased or misleading content.
2. Bias Introduction:
The Issue:
The concern here is that VR's capacity to evoke strong emotional responses and control narratives presents a significant risk of introducing bias in legal settings. The fear is that the immersive nature of VR can manipulate emotions, potentially swaying the perceptions of judges and jurors towards a case.
Ethical Implications:
There are natural concerns that emotional manipulation through VR can undermine the objectivity required in legal judgments. Additionally, the developers’ ability to add or subtract elements that could be seen as “controlling the narrative” in a VR simulation may lead to presentations that favor the perspective of the commissioning client, further risking biased outcomes.
Future Considerations:
Ongoing assessments and updates to VR content and development requirements are essential to respond to emerging ethical challenges and technological advancements. Collaborations with ethicists, legal professionals, and technologists will be crucial to continually refine VR applications to ensure they visualise the facts and evidence properly, and therefore serve justice effectively and impartially.
Mitigating the Risks:
We have found that the key to mitigating bias is simply to act impartially. As such, we deal with forensic investigators and other teams that ensure that all VR scenarios and simulations are entirely developed based on factual, objective evidence alone - without adding any speculative or subjective elements. This clinical approach to development and creation helps significantly to maintain the neutrality of the presentation.
Additional approaches that we suggest to mitigate bias or emotional manipulation risks include:
Multi-perspective Availability: Offering multiple perspectives and the ability to move freely within the experience avoids emphasising a single viewpoint, thereby allowing legal professionals to see the scenario from various angles and make more informed decisions. This is particularly useful when visualising actual witness positions to assist in validating or invalidating statements and events.
Emotional Calibration: Designing VR experiences in a way that aims to inform rather than evoke specific emotional responses. This involves careful consideration of the imagery and any narratives used, ensuring they reflect reality and the evidence at hand only, and do not lead to undue empathy or antipathy for any party.
Independent Oversight: Having VR content reviewed by an independent panel of legal and ethical experts can help significantly to ensure it does not introduce bias.
3. Ethical and Legal Challenges - Speculation and Opinion Evidence:
The Issue:
The fear is that the integration of VR into legal evidence can blur the line between factual testimony and speculative or opinion-based evidence; that VR and other 3D simulations, if not carefully managed, may present speculative scenarios as factual, potentially misleading the court.
Ethical Implications:
The main ethical issue in this regard is that the use of speculative VR content risks compromising the integrity of the legal process, where decisions should be based on reliable, factual evidence rather than conjectures or interpretations.
Future Considerations:
Continuing education and training for legal professionals on the capabilities and limitations of VR technology will be critical. This includes developing guidelines on how VR should be used in court to support, not replace, traditional evidence.
Mitigating the Risks:
Whilst concerns here are valid, our approach to only developing visualisations and simulations that are strictly based on verified data and factual evidence, ensuring that (our work, at least!) results in a fact-based solution and avoiding any speculative content.
Additional approaches that we suggest to mitigate speculation and opinion-based risks include:
Documentation and Transparency: Provide comprehensive documentation for all simulations. We typically including a Method Statement that details the sources of data, the creation of each individual element and any methodologies used for reconstruction that were made during the creation process, verified against the forensic data and other factual evidence.
Expert Validation: It may be useful to engage independent experts to validate VR simulations against the evidence and the documentation before they are used in court. This ensures the visualisation adheres strictly to the factual basis of the case.
Legal Compliance: Having development teams working closely with legal professionals helps to ensure that VR simulations meet all legal standards for admissible evidence and do not fall into the category of opinion evidence.
4. Accuracy and Quality Dependance:
The Issue:
The concerns here is that the outcome of legal cases using VR and other 3D visualisation technologies may heavily depend on the quality and accuracy of the VR simulations. Poorly created simulations could naturally mislead decision-makers by presenting incorrect or distorted information.
Ethical Implications:
The dependence on the quality of VR productions has raised ethical concerns about the potential for factual misrepresentation. The apprehension here is that this could compromise the fairness of trials and the accuracy of judicial decisions.
Future Considerations:
As VR technology advances, ongoing training for legal professionals and the updating of development standards will be necessary to keep up with new capabilities and ensure that VR and other real-time visualisation technologies remain trustworthy tools in legal contexts.
Mitigating the Risks:
The best way to mitigate this risk is to use competent, experienced and professional development partners to create simulations. In our case, Resol-VR commits to using state-of-the-art real-time rendering technology and expert knowledge of user interface and user experience design to ensure high production values in all legal simulations.
Additional approaches that we suggest to mitigate factual misrepresentation risks and ensure accuracy and quality in all visualisations include:
Accuracy Verification: Prior to inclusion in any case, each VR simulation should undergo rigorous verification processes to ensure that all depicted events and environments (including any weather conditions and other factors) are accurate representations of the real-world data.
Continuous Improvement: It is vitally important to implement feedback loops into the handover and operational processes. This allows legal professionals, experts and users to report inaccuracies or suggest improvements, ensuring the simulations evolve and remain both accurate and reliable over time.
Collaboration with Technological and Legal Experts: Working alongside experts in techology, legal, forensics and other related fields is highly recommended to ensure that VR simulations meet technical precision and legal admissibility standards.
5. Technological Disparity:
The Issue:
The concern here is that the technological disparity in the use of VR in legal settings can lead to inequalities, where not all parties have equal access to, or familiarity with, high-quality VR technology. This disparity could unfairly advantage one side over another.
Ethical Implications:
The ethical implications around technological disparity and unequal access to technological tools like VR revolve around the compromisation of the principles of fairness in the judicial process, and that this in turn can potentially lead to biased outcomes.
Future Considerations:
Promoting policies that require the equitable distribution of technology and training in the legal system will be essential. We would highly recomend ongoing evaluations of technology access and effectiveness in courtrooms, with these findings guiding future implementations.
Mitigating the Risks:
To mitigate the risk of technological disparity, we advocate strongly for the standardisation of hardware and court-supplied VR equipment to ensure all parties have access to the same quality of technology. In many cases, Resol-VR have supplied and installed hardware to accompany developed software as part of the same contract.
Additional approaches that we suggest to mitigate technological disparity include:
Training Programs: It is useful to provide or organise training sessions for legal professionals and court staff to ensure they are proficient in using and understanding VR technology.
Accessibility Features: Including features in VR simulations that cater to a diverse range of users, including those with disabilities can ensure comprehensive accessibility. This could include setting specific eye-level heights for wheelchair users, or colour-correcting options for those with visual impairments.
Subsidy and Support Systems: It will become increasingly important to work with and network with legal institutions to develop subsidy programs that help bridge the gap for under-resourced parties, ensuring everyone has equal access to necessary technology.
6. Over-Reliance on Technology:
The Issue:
The increasing use of VR in courtrooms raises concerns about the potential over-reliance on technology, with the fear here being that this might overshadow traditional legal reasoning and human judgment.
Ethical Implications:
If legal professionals rely too heavily on VR, the implications inferred are that this could diminish the importance of human insights and the nuanced understanding that comes from direct human interaction and analysis of physical evidence.
Future Considerations:
Ongoing research and dialogue with the legal community will be increasingly essential to assess the impact of VR and adjust its use accordingly. through these vital activities, the sector will be able to continuously evaluate how VR technology affects the legal decision-making process and to update training and guidelines as needed.
Mitigating the Risks:
A lot of the mitigations here rely on a more common-sense approach to implementation. We endeavour to ensure that we position VR and other forms of visualisation as complementary tools to support a case factually, rather than providing outputs as a replacement for traditional methods. In this way we are able to compliment the existing evidence by compiling all known details together and ensuring the visualisation aids rather than replaces human judgment.
Additional approaches that we suggest to mitigate the over-reliance on VR include:
Integration Training: Providing training for legal professionals on how to integrate VR with other forms of evidence (such as documents, photographs, CCTV recordings, etc.) and judicial practices effectively.
Guidelines for Use: It will become increasingly imperitive to develop clear guidelines on when and how VR should be used in legal proceedings to support, not supplant, the decision-making process.
Ethical Oversight: Establishing panels of legal and ethical experts to review and approve the use of VR in specific cases will ensure the use of technology enhances, rather than detracts, from fair judgments.
7. Potential for Misuse:
The Issue:
There are concerns that the powerful impacts of VR could potentially be exploited for unethical purposes, such as fabricating evidence, or altering scenarios to influence legal outcomes unfairly.
Ethical Implications:
From an ethical perspective, the potential misuse of VR technology in legal settings could lead to grave injustices, in turn undermining the credibility of the legal system and affecting public trust.
Future Considerations:
It is incredibly important to strengthen collaborations with legal authorities, technology experts, and ethical bodies to continuously monitor and update the safeguards against the misuse of VR. Additionally, it is crucial to ensure these measures evolve as VR technology advances and its application expands in legal contexts.
Mitigating the Risks:
Risk mitigations in the context of misuse require robust support from both legal stakeholders and technologists. As developers, we aim to take a neutral stance - only visualising the evidence and facts that we are provided by forensics teams. Whilst we implement stringent measures to verify the authenticity and origin of all evidence we visualise (documented in our method statement/s), we also suggest courts do the same to verify the authenticity and origin of all VR and other interactive 3D content used in legal proceedings.
Additional approaches that we suggest to mitigate the potential for misuse include:
Audit Trails: As part of our reporting, we creating comprehensive audit trails for VR simulations; allowing stakeholders to track any changes or inputs, ensuring transparency and accountability.
Legal Sanctions: Whilst not something we can control, we fully support and advocate for legal frameworks that penalise the misuse of VR technology in legal settings, deterring potential bad actors.
Awareness Campaigns: It may be useful to also conduct awareness campaigns about the ethical use of VR in law, educating stakeholders about the proper and improper uses of VR technology.
8. Privacy Concerns:
The Issue:
The concerns here are that the creation of visualisations in legal settings involve an additional, possibly external development team handling potentially sensitive or emotionally disturbing data and evidence, which necessitates additional or more robust data security measures to protect against unauthorised access and breaches.
Ethical Implications:
The ethical implications here is that inadequate data security can lead to privacy violations and potentially compromise the integrity of legal proceedings. From a development perspective, ensuring privacy is therefore not only a technical requirement as part of our process, but a fundamental ethical obligation.
Future Considerations:
It may be useful to develop partnerships and relationships with cybersecurity firms to keep abreast of the latest security technologies and practices. Continuously evolving data protection measures to counter new security threats will be critical as VR, alongside other technologies such as AI, advances.
Mitigating the Risks:
In mitigating risks around privacy and data concerns, we address the data held within the visualisation itself, alongside the deployment and storage of the software internally and at a client level. This is achieved by employing state-of-the-art encryption techniques to secure all data involved, ensuring that information remains confidential.
Additional approaches that we suggest to mitigate privacy concerns include:
Regular Security Audits: Extending existing regular internal security audits and updates to include VR software storage and access systems to address vulnerabilities and prevent security breaches.
Data Minimisation: Limit the collection and use of any personal data in VR applications to that which is strictly necessary for legal proceedings, whilst adhering to privacy laws and regulations. Often there is no need to include any personal data; though we continue to maintain security over any alternative included data, such as tachograph and GPS information used to model the speed and trajectory of vehicular travel.
Stakeholder Training: Providing training for all stakeholders on the importance of data security and privacy in the use of VR technology can be very useful in aligning all parties and determining the most appropriate strategy and approach based on the evidence to be visualised.
As we explore the integration of Virtual Reality and other interactive visualisation technologies into the courtroom, it is essential to navigate both its potential benefits and ethical challenges with careful consideration. VR technology offers remarkable opportunities for enhancing the understanding of complex legal scenarios and making the judicial process more efficient and accessible; however, the ethical implications surrounding memory manipulation, bias introduction, data security, and the potential for misuse, do require rigorous safeguards and ethical guidelines to be set up to ensure that its use meets its potential and enhances justice, rather than compromising it.
Here at Resol-VR, we are committed to leading by example, implementing robust measures to ensure that VR applications in legal settings are developed with the highest standards of accuracy, objectivity, and ethical integrity. By advocating for clear labelling, educational briefings, and strict adherence to legal and evidentiary standards, we aim to mitigate the risks associated with VR technology. Additionally, we work to ensure our approach emphasises the importance of balancing technological innovation with the preservation of traditional legal values, such as fairness and human judgment.
Moving forward, it is our opinion that the legal community must continue to engage in dialogue and collaboration to refine the use of VR in courtrooms. This goes much further than one company, territory or jurisdiction and involves constant evaluation of the technology's impact, updating practices, and maintaining an open discourse on its ethical implications. If done correctly, with the right goals and partners involved, we truly believe we can harness the benefits of real-time 3D visualisation to create a more informed, fair, and efficient judicial system, while safeguarding the rights and privacy of all individuals involved.
By taking a comprehensive approach at this stage, it ensures that as we all step into the future of legal technology, we do so with a firm commitment to upholding the principles of justice and ethical responsibility. We invite all stakeholders—legal professionals, forensics teams, law enforcement, insurance specialists, technologists, and ethicists—to join us in this important conversation to harness VR's full potential while safeguarding fundamental legal principles.
For further information, potential collaboration, or to share your own insights, please contact us by clicking here.