The metaverse can be regulated within the current legal framework

The Firm's Director of Legal and DPO, Toni Sanchez, points out that European digital regulations offer sufficient solutions to deal with conflicts in the virtual space, although they will have to be adapted to deal with unpredictable casuistry.

The main conflicts in the metaverse are the right to privacy and data protection.

This virtual space is at an early stage of development, but the opportunities it generates have aroused the interest of users and companies.

The technological revolution experienced in recent years has led to a series of social changes, integrating new ways of living our daily lives, which in many cases cannot be understood without technology. This accelerated digitalization has meant that sometimes there is no clear legal framework to deal with problems that arise in connectivity environments, in some cases threatening social rights.

The metaverse is one of the latest digital revolutions that users and companies are now facing, a space whose possibilities are still unknown due to its early stage of development. With this, the current legal framework must see what problems it can reach and in which aspects it must adapt to the new reality.

The conference 'Legal aspects of the metaverse: Legal keys for your company', organized by Grant Thornton and the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, was attended by Antonio Sánchez, director of Legal and DPO at Grant Thornton, and Cai Felip, CEO of Link Realities. Both experts discussed and analyzed the current reality of the metaverse and the problems that may arise in this virtual space, taking into account the intervention of the legal framework in the activity of the user and companies.

The metaverse is still in the technological development phase and, although for the moment it is being conceived as a replica of the real world in the virtual environment, it is very likely that it will change course and provide new functionalities to those it offers at the moment. In this sense, Cai Felip said that 'in the medium-term future we will see many solutions in the metaverse thanks to augmented reality, which companies will apply in their processes and which will interfere in the way we relate, work or buy'.

The current legal framework is valid, but will need to be expanded.

As Grant Thornton points out, the current legal framework in the digital sphere proposes solutions for scenarios that occur in the virtual space, although there are cases that do not apply. In this sense, the role of the legislator is very important to provide legal certainty to companies and users that coexist in the metaverse.

In the last two years, the European legal framework has developed a regulatory plan in the digital sphere that has served as a reference for creating the legal framework of other countries. From the perspective of data protection, European regulations have served to generate a standard that regulates the conditions under which an identity can process user information and protection.

In the words of Antonio Sánchez, 'the European legislator is very sensitive to the digital issue, which is very positive because it offers legal certainty. We often see the regulator as someone who controls or limits, but we must see it as the one who establishes the rules of the game and who generates that security, allowing companies and users to participate in the virtual space in a calm way'.

Despite this leadership of the European regulation, nobody tells us that an agreement between the brands or parties that create these virtual environments cannot arise to set the rules of the metaverse if the public regulator does not do so, being themselves the ones to establish the criteria to set a legal regulation.

Right to privacy and impersonation

One of the problems that most concerns experts in the metaverse is respect for privacy, a right that is included in the current legislation and that constitutes a constitutional block. However, the current legislative framework, the Civil Code and the Constitution provide a response to many of the environments that we can find in the digital environment, although it can sometimes fall short and it is the responsibility of the legislator to make them as extensive as possible.

According to Antonio Sánchez, 'we have current rules that are very applicable to the right to privacy, but the problem can arise in the identification of the person behind the avatar'. In this sense, experts have pointed out that impersonation in the metaverse is unquestionable, especially in the case of valuable avatars. Cyber-attack will also be present in the metaverse, so developers must find ways to generate authentication and recognition systems that cannot be copied.

The application of blockchain technology allows the metaverse to offer confidentiality, making it easier for the user to establish minimization criteria in information sharing. We are moving towards a model in which everyone chooses what information is visible, with whom and for how long, allowing better control over the data that is shared.