POLICY AND PRACTICE REVIEWS article
Front. Virtual Real.
Sec. Virtual Reality and Human Behaviour
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frvir.2025.1520655
This article is part of the Research TopicA Metaverse for the Good: Design, Application and UnderstandingView all 18 articles
Rethinking privacy for avatars: biometric and inferred data in the metaverse
Provisionally accepted
Giovanni Sorrentino1,2*
Javier López-Guzmán3*- 1University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
- 2University of Camerino, Camerino, Marche, Italy
- 3University of Alicante, Alicante, Valencian Community, Spain
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As the metaverse expands, it introduces novel challenges to data privacy and protection, particularly in the handling of biometric and inferred data. This paper examines the implications of existing European legal frameworks, notably the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), on the processing of biometric information and other sensitive data within immersive virtual environments. In the metaverse, avatars-often designed to closely resemble their creators-serve as rich sources of both explicit and inferred personal data, raising significant concerns regarding user consent, data processing, and privacy. By comparing regulations from both the EU and the United States, including the newly proposed American Privacy Rights Act, this study highlights the gaps in current legal protections surrounding avatars and the biometric or inferred data they may reveal. The findings indicate an urgent need for updated regulatory approaches to address the unique data privacy challenges of virtual identities and underscore the need for transparency and user control over digital representations in evolving digital landscapes.
Keywords: Metaverse, biometrics, Data, GDPR, Privacy, Avatars, Digital Identity, AI Act
Received: 31 Oct 2024; Accepted: 15 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sorrentino and López-Guzmán. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Giovanni Sorrentino, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Javier López-Guzmán, University of Alicante, Alicante, 03690, Valencian Community, Spain
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