IGF 2025 Lightning Talk #143 Fundamental Rights in Metaverse

FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS IN METAVERSE

In the age of Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Extended Reality (foundations of digital world), the foremost question that needs to be addressed is the regulation of these technologies such that the fundamental rights and human rights of the people are protected, respected and enforced by the state. As humans we spend most of our time online especially after Covid 19, which makes the role of metaverse more significant in impacting our daily lives. There is a sense of digital lawlessness in the metaverse world due to undemocratic rule making. In Metaverse world, we are mostly governed by the arbitrary laws, terms and conditions made by respective platforms. They can pose deep risks to our mental, physical and emotional well-being. Raising complaints regarding possible violations become a difficult process. For example: evidence of possible violation may be shown to the police/regulator, but the identification of the perpetrator remains a perpetual challenge to combat. It is in this context that the users need to be more aware about their fundamental rights in digital space and take adequate measures to protect themselves.

Most often fundamental rights have been defined once an injury has already occurred. A fundamental right is per se designed to protect and safeguard the rights of an individual not the state. The potential injuries that can occur by violation of a Fundamental right is to life, property, reputation (individual and legal persons) and crimes against the state. In such a scenario, what solutions do we have in the world of Metaverse? Before answering this question, it is pertinent to note that the kind of threats it poses to the present governance system all over the world.

Can multilateral development, domestic soft regulation, formation of a state constitution in liberal terms at international, national and corporate level solve the problem? Given the changing world order considering the current US administration and with the world organizations becoming less multilateral with an inclination to follow their own separate ways, it is difficult to bring everyone to a consensus. In such a scenario, the hypothesis can be that Metaverse cannot be governed either at international or national level. Therefore, what could be the best possible path to resolve the challenges to fundamental rights in digital space. Since tools like treaty, national level enforcement can be a challenge given the transboundary nature of criminal activities, it appears that self-regulation will be most-promising way out to design and implement strategic ideas in this field. Enforcing self-regulation shall bring a lot of flexibilities in today’s geopolitical, social and technological world. It is in this context that we examine self-regulation model in the present session to address the challenges of violation of fundamental rights in the metaverse space because every nation today wants to follow their own path and defend their sovereignty.

To solve the problems of lawlessness in digital space, this session is an attempt to explore the norms of a “Constitution for Metaverse” that can in reality safeguard the internet rights of people across the world. This session shall have a broader approach to understand various ethics and values by which the netizens wish to be governed. The first half of the session shall deal with various problems/violations that poses substantial risks to human rights including but not limited to a more-invasive data collection and ubiquitous surveillance, how the extended reality (XR) technologies could even be used by governments and officials to access our lives without our knowledge and unnecessarily create invasion of privacy. It shall deal with new avenues for online harassment and abuse and approaches that the regulatory bodies and law enforcement agencies should adopt to curb this problem that continue to impact children and women. After summarizing in the first half, the efforts made till date to deal with disruptive technologies, the second half shall focus on key gaps in processes and the outcome thus far. Following a methodical approach, it is at this point, we as speakers will be rightly placed to identify the foundational principles that must govern in designing the fundamental rights for the metaverse world.

The lightning talk also briefly discuss the judicial approach in few select countries; in dealing with violations in metaverse space wherein the courts have found no conclusive evidence in identification of perpetrator but have relied more on circumstantial and documentary evidence to determine the existence of lawlessness in digital space. The judicial approach can also highlight the problems judges face in enforcing fundamental rights but also might not be the best possible way to assess the economic outcomes and their normative implications. Essentially, the talk aims to contribute to both practical and scholarly objectives by developing a future system for Metaverse that bears in mind the standard-setting process to safeguard the future balance of varied forces in the digital space and to not to overlook the legal challenges posed by disruptive technologies to the common man.

Participation from the audience will be strongly encouraged. To help listeners participate and to collect their feedback easily, we are planning to use Wooclap, a user-friendly platform that helps to attract the attention of the audience. It is not our purpose to overload the audience with information, rather we aim to keep them engaged. We plan to do this also by showing a PowerPoint presentation, as visual support to our narrative, to improve the audience's focus. This shall help us in holding the attention span of the attendees and in simplifying the technical and legal elements of privacy, data protection and competition law that are essential to the dialogue. After the presentation, the audience will have time to interact with the presenters during the Q&A part of the session, by debating the issues pointed out and providing regional and local insights to the discussion.