The Metaverse And Some Legal Implications In Nigeria -By Stephanie Iragbeson Omosun

The buzzword going around these days is the “Metaverse”. With more and more people trying to get the hang of it, technology companies predict that this is the future of work, play, and all human interactions in between. The concept of the Metaverse has shifted from a concept known only for science fiction media to a very real prospect as technology develops.

Although vaguely defined, the term “metaverse” is typically used to describe the concept of a future iteration of the internet, made up of shared, 3D virtual spaces linked into a perceived virtual universe. In simpler terms, the metaverse refers to a virtual world in which you can interact with other people and places using avatars. Technology companies are envisioning various types of metaverse platforms. One such platform would be based on blockchain and allow users to purchase land and build environments using non-fungible tokens and cryptocurrencies. Another type of platform may be a more general virtual world where people can work, play, or socialize. Both artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will play a key role in the development of a metaverse, as the point of the metaverse will be to merge our physical reality into the digital universe using avatars. Essentially, the metaverse will be an ultimate culmination of virtual reality and augmented reality.

The new era of the metaverse will have implications on all aspects of our society, including entertainment, advertising, and the economy. For example, imagine a metaverse in which you can use your avatar to go into a virtual mall, try on clothes offered by real clothing companies, and then purchase the outfits that look best on your avatar (and therefore on you) without even leaving your house. During the pandemic, musicians have been able to put on virtual concerts using virtual reality akin to what a metaverse would be like. With such interactions, legal implications are inevitable.

The Metaverse and Privacy:

The metaverse is built on the foundation of extended reality technologies which include virtual and augmented reality. As it is with any other technology, extended reality can have many positive impacts on our daily lives as it can pose substantial risks to our human rights. Virtual reality headsets and augmented reality glasses, coupled with other wearables, could continue the march towards ever-more-invasive data collection and ubiquitous surveillance. This data harvesting, sometimes done by companies with a history of putting profit before protections, sets the stage for unprecedented invasions into our lives, our homes, and even our thoughts, as data collected by extended reality devices is used for targeted advertising and to enable new forms of “biometric psychography” to make inferences about our deepest desires and inclinations. Once collected, there is little users can do to mitigate the harms done by leaks of data or data being monetized by third parties. These devices will also collect huge amounts of data about our homes and private spaces, and could allow governments, companies, and law enforcement illegitimate access to our lives, exacerbating already severe intrusions on our privacy.

While the Metaverse is going to be universal, data protection laws in Nigeria, and around the globe in general are still inconsistent due to the divergence of economic strategies and societal considerations. The quantum of the collected data might not be an issue in comparison with the hazard that inaccurate data might cause. Hyper-realistic avatars allow users to hide their identity for unjustifiable reasons (e.g. a child who choses to appear as an adult in Metaverse), which can in turn affect the validity of the consent upon which the Metaverse system gleans data. In light of this, it is important that regulators intervene directly to preclude any kind of dispersal of incorrect data among Metaverse users to influence their mindset and behavior to serve a specific agenda. The Nigerian Data Protection Bill 2020 and other future as well as extant relevant data and privacy regulations must align and provide adequate protection for data subjects in line with the new reality of the metaverse. Legislations on data collection and processing should be reviewed to include data generated and collected by extended reality systems, including medical or psychographic inferences. Regulators must clearly define this data as sensitive, strongly protected personal data under the law, even when it does not meet the high threshold to be classified as biometric, personal data, or personally identifiable information (PII) under the current law.

Legislation should recognize extended reality systems can be used to make problematic, invasive inferences about our thoughts, emotions, inclinations, and private mental life.

The Metaverse and Real Estate:

As the world becomes more virtual with each passing day, we are faced with a new challenge about buying digital land. Virtual real estate is a growing market. Digital land is selling for millions as people scramble to grab virtual real estate in the metaverse which is expected to become a multitrillion-dollar opportunity in the near future. Partly, this growth has been because brands have been buying up space so they can create virtual stores and other experiences. The average price of land doubled in a six-month window in 2021. It jumped from $6000 in June to $12,000 in December across the four main Web 3.0 metaverses. Interest in digital real estate caught everyone’s attention with the recent record $4.3 million purchase of a plot of land in Sandbox. In June 2021, one land in Decentraland was sold for $913,000 with the developer turning it into an entire shopping district, Metajuku. Minecraft, Roblox, Decentraland, and Sandbox are popular platforms offering digital real estate. Since digital real estate does not have any regulations as it exists in a virtual world, it can be registered using non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These are digital collectibles or unique digital tokens to properties, stored on a blockchain ledger.

The issue that comes to mind is how can the sale and ownership of the virtual real estate be monitored and regulated by the government?

Section 1 and 2 of the Land Use Act 1978 vests ownership of all lands in a state to the governor as well as the administration and control of urban lands. Unsurprisingly, the Nigerian legal system makes no provision for virtual lands, as this reality had not been contemplated at the time of the drafting of the extant law. There is an urgent need for regulators to be abreast with the reality of virtual real estate and enact relevant laws to govern the administration of same.

The Metaverse and Employment:

In December, 43-year-old doctoral researcher Nina Jane Patel put on a headset and entered Meta’s virtual world to see what was happening that day.

“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.’”

The incident took place in the metaverse in which tech groups expect us to spend a far greater proportion of time in the future, both playing and, crucially, working.

When it comes to employment laws, however, it is unclear what rules of engagement apply in a universal digital realm. What counts as harassment in the metaverse? Can an avatar be discriminated against, or worse? Will national legislation protect employees or does working in the metaverse require a new rule book altogether? The global workforce has grown far more accustomed to working remotely in the past two years because of the Covid-19 pandemic and companies have already started experimenting with virtual reality in the workplace. Hilton hotel group, for example, uses it to train staff on how to handle guests. And last year Microsoft, in its first step towards blending the physical and digital worlds of work, began rolling out a plan to enable workers to appear on its Teams collaboration software as avatars.

The metaverse however takes hybrid working a step further, and brings with it a host of thorny employment law issues. These range from practical challenges, such as how are employees paid, to more philosophical ones, like whether avatars have a legal identity. For instance can you tie an avatar to a natural person and sue the natural person for cases such as harassment in the workplace? What jurisdictional laws will apply when companies have employees spread across several countries in such cases of harassment?

“The legal conundrums are about as diverse as the possibilities of the metaverse itself,” says Jonathan Newman, managing associate at law firm Simmons & Simmons. The physical world of work is regulated by national legal frameworks. In the metaverse, however, the national employment law that applies is not immediately obvious.

The Labour Act 2004 makes no provision for digital world of work as it exists in the metaverse. There is therefore a need for such situations to be contemplated and necessary reviews made to fit the reality of today’s digital world of work.

Conclusion:

Today, the advancement of technology does not pause, and so neither must the regulator. Indeed, we might be way past the point of not having full control over the extension of such a digital big bang. The future will be teeming with unprecedented technologies that are irreversibly interconnected with our lives. Actions taken in virtual environments will have real world consequences and vice versa; thus, regulators should spare no effort to ensure that the public will remain shielded from such effects.