Personal Data processing within Immersive Virtual Worlds: Privacy challenges in the interconnected data-driven Metaverse - MetaverseUA Chair Research Paper #2

The metaverse is a virtual space that merges the physical and digital worlds into a dynamic, interconnected, and data-driven environment. This virtual setting depends on technologies, platforms, tools, and devices designed to process large-scale and real-time big data. The ability to collect, store, and seamlessly connect massive datasets generated by metaverse interactions -including declared, observed, and inferred personal data- is growing rapidly. The immersive experiences of virtual worlds exacerbate hyperconnectivity and data-gathering challenges, which may intensify or alter the existing issues raised by big data processing models and their underlying technologies. This study aims to explore the complex landscape of data protection in virtual interactive settings. The main goal is to identify and analyse the most urgent privacy and data protection challenges that need to be solved to enable the development of trustworthy and secure metaverse ecosystems.