The latest developments in computer hardware, sensor technologies, and artificial intelligence can make virtual reality (VR) and virtual spaces an important part of human everyday life. Eye tracking offers not only a hands-free way of interaction but also the possibility of a deeper understanding of human visual attention and cognitive processes in VR. Despite these possibilities, eye-tracking data also reveals users' privacy-sensitive attributes when combined with the information about the presented stimulus. To address all, this survey first covers major works in eye tracking, VR, and privacy areas between 2012 and 2022. While eye tracking in VR part covers the computational eye tracking pipeline from pupil detection and gaze estimation to offline data analysis, for privacy and security, we focus on eye-based authentication as well as computational methods to preserve the privacy of individuals and their eye-tracking data in VR. Later, we outline three main directions by focusing on privacy. In summary, this survey presents an extensive literature review of the utmost possibilities of eye tracking in VR and their privacy implications.

翻译：计算机硬件、传感器技术和人工智能的最新进展使得虚拟现实（VR）与虚拟空间有望成为人类日常生活的重要组成部分。眼动追踪不仅提供了免提交互方式，还为深入理解VR环境中人类的视觉注意与认知过程创造了可能。然而，当眼动数据与呈现的刺激信息相结合时，也会泄露用户的隐私敏感属性。为此，本综述首先系统梳理了2012至2022年间眼动追踪、VR及隐私领域的重要研究成果：在VR眼动追踪部分，涵盖了从瞳孔检测、视线估计到离线数据分析的完整计算流程；在隐私安全方面，重点探讨了眼部生物认证技术以及保护VR用户及其眼动数据隐私的计算方法。随后，我们围绕隐私问题提出三个主要研究方向。总体而言，本综述通过详尽的文献综述，系统阐述了VR眼动追踪技术的广阔应用前景及其带来的隐私影响。