Metaverse must solve child safety and regulatory challenges if it wants to go mainstream, says BCS

Published by

Peter Davison

The metaverse needs to overcome safeguarding, skills and regulation challenges, if it hopes to become part of everyday life, according to research by Swindon-based BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

A majority (77 per cent) of tech professionals are concerned about safety issues in the metaverse, according to the survey of over 1,000 IT professionals by BCS.

And 81 per cent of experts think the virtual environment will create new regulatory challenges.

The BCS research will be discussed in Westminster on Monday 15 May, at an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) session on the metaverse and also Web 3.0 — a term describing the next version of the internet, based on technology like blockchain.

The BCS poll also found that:

Only one-quarter of IT professionals believe the metaverse and immersive technologies will benefit society.
Only 38 per cent think that Web 3.0 will improve society.
There is a relatively low level of confidence that the UK has the digital skills to benefit economically from metaverse and Web 3.0 - only 19 per cent are confident about metaverse and 26 per cent for Web 3.0.
Most agree that the metaverse (81 per cent) and Web 3.0 (77 per cent) will create new regulatory challenges.
Half of IT experts surveyed think the metaverse will have a negative effect on the Earth's climate. 32 per cent say it will have no effect and 18 per cent indicated the effect would be positive.
The results are similar for Web 3.0.

The metaverse can be described as a 3D digital space that uses virtual reality to allow people to have lifelike experiences online.

Web 3.0 has been explained as an idea for a new version of the World Wide Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralisation and blockchain technologies.

However, both the Metaverse and Web 3.0 lack clear, accepted definitions that will make sense to both professionals and the public, BCS found.

Rashik Parmar MBE, Chief Executive of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT said: “We won’t all be living and working in the metaverse anytime soon. But we may spend more time in virtual environments, and so being able to trust the world we’re stepping into is vital.

“Tech professionals think the safety of potential metaverse users, especially children, is a big concern, as the boundaries between the real and the digital world become blurred. They tell us that regulation, safeguarding issues and depth of available skills all need to be resolved before the metaverse can become part of everyday life. The impact on the environment is also a huge challenge.

“Immersive technology, just like AI, should be built and maintained by teams of ethical, highly competent, inclusive professionals to give us a better chance of avoiding the mistakes still seen with social media. Ideally, we should be able to hold individuals and organisations ‘running’ the metaverse to some agreed standards of professional accountability.

“The same is true of the idea of Web 3.0 – to take advantage of possible opportunities of de-centralised technology like blockchain, it needs to be built on a basis of public education, transparency and trust.”

Image: Image by Gerd Altmann , Pixabay

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.