Children and the metaverse

With “visitors” to the virtual reality landscape of metaverse platforms increasing in huge numbers, Bailiwick Data Protection Commissioner Brent Homan examines the promise and perils of this cyber-frontier for its largest user group – our children.   

The metaverse is massive.

With 600 million monthly users worldwide, its ‘population’ is expected to quadruple by 2030. And of those 600 million users, 80% are under 16 with just over half under 13 years old.

If you are a gamer, or a parent of a young gamer, the metaverse “who’s who” will be quite familiar.  From Minecraft to Epic Games to Meta’s metaverse, there are a growing number of players in the industry, with the most popular platform for young people today being Roblox.

The metaverse has huge potential to improve our lives.

As for the promise of the metaverse, let’s first consider its entertainment value.  With gaming options for all tastes and age groups, family game night never looked more exciting, and if mum or dad are away on work, they can still log-in remotely to race around the Mario Kart track.  Similarly, certain metaverse platforms have proven excellent education tools wrapped in an ‘infotainment’ package – I know that my daughter has started to learn the value of savings while building her character in Animal Crossing. 

Turning to the social isolation of youth, it remains of grave concern in today’s society. The metaverse can help children develop supportive relationships to reduce loneliness and can fulfil the social needs of young people left by the general decline of public events and social interactions. 

And when it comes to physical isolation, I learned a hard lesson first-hand from a youth group when visiting an Arctic community in Canada a few years back. While in the Yukon I was talking with a group of young leaders about online perils, including cyber-bullying and predatory behaviour, when suddenly I felt a collective “eye-roll” from the group.  I stopped in my tracks and asked them – “it’s clear that you are not picking up what I am laying down, so what exactly am I missing here!?” Their response was both honest and insightful – ‘yes, dangers exist and they are aware of them, but living up in the north, their only connection to a wider network of young people in other parts of the world, was online.  If they didn’t have that, life would be very dark indeed.  In Guernsey, we may not live in the Arctic, but we do live on an island, and I am sure that similar sentiments apply amongst our children.

….But risks and dangers abound.

As metaverse expert Dr. Louis Rosenberg highlights, a clear objective of virtual reality is to blur the very boundaries between what’s real, and what’s not.  To that end, tracking, profiling and targeting in the metaverse pose magnified dangers for kids over adults.

Young kids can’t provide consent on their own accord, so these platforms require parental involvement, and are expected to deploy barriers to prevent kids from unknowingly venturing into the meta-wilderness on their own. 

To that end, platforms must ensure effective age verification that cannot be easily overcome by the bright minds of 9-year-olds who know that inputting Dad’s birthday may get them an invitation to the ‘virtual party’.  In fact, 10 years ago I conducted a global privacy sweep of websites popular with children. To get the most meaningful results we enlisted actual children to participate, curious about whether they would be stopped by the age verification safeguards of websites. Well, the ‘Theory of Relativity’ may state that there is nothing that can exceed the speed of light, but Einstein never witnessed how fast a motivated child can blast through a flimsy age verification gate.

Data protection authorities around the globe have recognized the need for elevated age-verification safeguards, and on this point the UK ICO has led the drafting of a Joint statement on a common international approach to age assurance of which Guernsey is a signatory.  Amongst other principles, the statement underscores that age assurance cannot be the sole solution to protecting children online. Parental oversight and controls, public education, and awareness campaigns, must all work in concert with age verification to provide a shield of protection against online hazards.

And then there are exploitative dangers.  Back in October, Hindenburg Research, described Roblox as “an X-rated paedophile hellscape”.  It was alleged that the platform was replete with groomers, sex games, violent content and abusive speech – all of which was open to young children. They called upon Ofcom to take action and Roblox has since responded with a pledge that includes restricting access to mature content and granting parents control of who their child is interacting with and how long they are spending on the platform.

Such risks underscore why it is so important these platforms be properly monitored for exploitative behaviour, with effective reporting when users feel threatened and even more strict consequences including bans and referral to police authorities where warranted. 

And this is the perennial challenge with exciting new technologies, how to help realise the limitless promise of the metaverse while addressing the very real risks.  It is a collective challenge that we all play a role in addressing – parents, educators, government leaders, regulators, metaverse platforms – all working together to provide a safe place to explore, socialize, learn and play, for our children. On that note I would like to extend an invitation to a local digital safety event that the ODPA is involved with, Ace Invaders 2025, where children and parents can relax and partake in some competitive gaming,  including a Smash Bros tournament, while learning a safety lesson or two along the way!