Protection of Privacy in Virtual Reality: Liability for the Use of Deepfake Content in the Metaverse

Abstract

The metaverse, as an immersive and persistent virtual environment, forms a new category of threat to public relations regarding privacy, when combined with the misuse of artificial intelligence technologies to create hyper-realistic synthetic media (photo, video, audio).

Existing legal frameworks, predominantly designed to regulate interaction in physical reality and earlier iterations of the digital environment, are not sufficiently adapted to effectively counteract the challenges posed by the creation, use and dissemination of so-called deepfakes. The application of these technologies to the formation of virtual avatars (images) of people in the metaverse presents a particularly complex regulatory challenge.

Presented is a possible mechanism for establishing legal liability based on the formal recognition of a set of “virtual personality rights”. This complex includes the right to authenticity and control over one’s own avatar, the right to confirm authorship and protection from misappropriation of virtual identity, as well as the right to ensure the integrity of the subject’s virtual environment. The proposed approach also envisages the need to distinguish the legal responsibility between the actors who directly create synthetic media materials using machine learning, those who carry out their subsequent use and distribution, and the providers of metaverse platforms that deliver the infrastructure for such interaction.