The metaverse is all the rage, both for personal and business use. But the decentralized virtual space could be a minefield for business owners.
The metaverse, a virtual world where people can engage in social activities without leaving the comfort of their home, is on the radar of businesses worldwide. Some businesses already use virtual spaces to conduct work when remote team members are not in the office, and more will utilize these spaces in the years to come. Remote work has become commonplace rather than the outlier it used to be, and businesses are looking for ways to embrace the remote-work lifestyle. But there are considerations that must be made, specifically, it’s important for business owners and decision-makers to know that there is no legal framework in the metaverse, and it’s unclear what employment laws apply.
Before the coronavirus pandemic sent everyone into isolation, employment relationships were largely geographically fixed, which means that people typically worked within a commutable distance to their place of employment. Many employment laws are nation- or state-specific, and not optional. The metaverse, however, brings a slew of challenges. “The legal conundrums are about as diverse as the possibilities of the metaverse itself,” says Jonathan Newman, managing associate at law firm Simmons & Simmons. There are no national boundaries and no one has determined jurisdiction.
“There are no national boundaries in the metaverse, so the first question is, ‘Where is the jurisdiction with the greater connection to the work?’” says Newman. “It could be the law of the country where the company owning the platform is . . . it could be the law of the country where the servers are based, or where the employee is . . . no one has reached an agreement on that.”
With no jurisdiction being set, there are even more questions about crime in the metaverse. For example, in December 2021, Nina Jane Patel, a doctoral researcher, entered Meta’s metaverse. “Within seconds of being there, there were three avatars near me,” she says. “Suddenly they were taking selfies . . . I couldn’t see at first that they were groping the avatar’s upper body . . . They were yelling at me, ‘Don’t pretend you don’t like it, this is what you came for.’”
That example is of a social platform, not a business platform, but the questions still apply. Are avatars entitled to the same rights as their human counterpart? What constitutes harassment? Can avatars be discriminated against? Will national legislation be enough to protect employees, or should the metaverse have its own rulebook?
As a business owner, you hope that your employees would not treat each other in such a manner as described above. But what about data privacy and security? What about proprietary information? If those things are breached in a virtual space, does the punishment match what would happen if someone divulged this information in the real world? And then there’s the question of biometric data collected by the platform itself. All of these questions remain unanswered.
“Existing laws do not account for new paradigms being created in immersive technology,” writes Brittan Heller, a technology lawyer and fellow at US-based think-tank Atlantic Council in a discussion paper published in 2020. “Many questions prompted by the new technology bring us beyond current frontiers of the law: How are scans of user data collected? How is the information stored? How often is the information updated? How long is data retained?”
The technology around the metaverse will not be fully realized for at least 10 years, according to numerous experts, and waiting for it to reach its full potential is frustrating. But while we wait for this technology to realize its full potential and for all of the individual platforms to be connected, governments and policy-makers need to address the questions above. There needs to be legislation, regulations, and consequences to protect all parties involved.
If you’re a business owner or decision-maker considering joining the metaverse for hybrid or remote work, it’s very important to make sure you set your own internal policies, procedures, and disciplinary action for your employees. Ensuring that the policies include protection for both the business and its employees will put all parties at ease. And remember, when legislation and national/international regulations are implemented, you may have to adjust your internal policies. But having something in place while you wait is essential.