In a world still striving for securing data protection and data sovereignty, the metaverse comes as one of the latest trends in technological developments and waves. Similar to its previous counterparts, the idea opens up a multitude of risks and threats, coming hand-in-hand with the opportunities it creates. This research paper tries to explore the possible data protection concerns and implications of the metaverse. The paper approaches this novel topic through the ‘Life Cycle of Data Threat Model’ that tries to pinpoint some threats in different stages of the data life cycle. The paper then tries to find out some emerging policy trends regarding the introduction of the metaverse, building on the currently existing policy trends of countries in data protection.
The metaverse, as announced by Mark Zuckerberg in October 2021, is gaining noticeable momentum. Metaverse is expected to present huge economic and social opportunities such as in health, education and industry sectors. However, this comes with a high cost; a wide range of risks on privacy, data protection, identity, cybersecurity, ownership, misuse, digital sovereignty as well as economic and social risks such as impacts on vulnerable groups.