{"id":212041,"date":"2022-01-25T05:00:53","date_gmt":"2022-01-25T05:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cryptoslate.com\/?p=212041"},"modified":"2022-01-24T22:54:51","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T22:54:51","slug":"legal-thoughts-on-metaverse-ii-data-protection-and-privacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cryptoslate.com\/legal-thoughts-on-metaverse-ii-data-protection-and-privacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Thoughts on Metaverse (II) Data Protection and Privacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the previous<\/a> <\/span>Legal Thoughts on <\/span><\/i>Metaverse<\/span><\/i><\/a> (I): Intellectual Property Rights, <\/span><\/i>we explored how issues around Intellectual property (IP) could develop. While that is still largely theoretical, early metaverse projects <\/span>already<\/span><\/i> have issues with data protection.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this article, we will focus on data protection and privacy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Data and Privacy Violations<\/b><\/h2>\n

In recent months, many users have claimed their Roblox accounts were stolen on Bilibi, a Chinese youtube. Estimated by RTrack, Roblox has 202 million monthly active users by April 2021 and over 65% are children under 16.<\/span><\/p>\n

With its growing popularity, Roblox has faced the problem of hackers stealing accounts via third-party browser extensions, compromised passwords and unbound email addresses. Although Roblox has listed steps for retrieving stolen accounts on its official website; not every player is lucky to get their account back.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, even when players manage to retrieve accounts, their props and currency are often long gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

As this problem in Roblox illustrates, the metaverse already has many privacy and data security issues, with many more likely to emerge. These include complex deep forgery as metaverse service providers access more user data, including biometric, location and banking information.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, data and privacy protection are key concerns for regulators and internet companies that are moving into the metaverse. Since advertising will likely remain the major revenue source for the world's two largest Internet companies, Facebook (now renamed Meta) and Google, consumers\u2019 personal data will be prone to misuse.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Overview of Legislations on Protections of Personal Information<\/b><\/h2>\n

Global legislation on personal information protection can be traced back to the 1970 Data Protection Act of the German state of Hesse. Since then, personal information protection laws in Switzerland (1973), France (1978), Norway (1978), Finland (1978), Iceland (1978), Austria (1978), Iceland (1981), Ireland (1988), Portugal (1991), Belgium (1992) and other countries have also emerged.<\/span><\/p>\n

The earliest written legislation on data and privacy in the United States dates back to the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. \u00a7 552a). Since then, there have been many other noteworthy legislations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n