Police in the United Kingdom have opened up their first ever investigation into a virtual sexual assault following a complaint made in 2023. The complainant, a young girl under the age of 16, was left traumatized after her avatar was gang raped by strangers in the metaverse.
As the attack took place virtually, the victim didn’t suffer any physical harm, but officers have explained that she suffered the same psychological and emotional trauma as if she’d been assaulted in the real world, owing to the immersive nature of the metaverse, which users can enter using a VR headset.
According to the BBC, Ian Critchley of the National Police Chiefs’ Council has argued that the metaverse has created a “gateway for predators to commit horrific crimes against children, crimes we know have lifelong impacts both emotionally and mentally.” He also argued, “We must see much more action from tech companies to do more to make their platforms safe places.”
One problem with investigating and prosecuting metaverse-based crimes like assault is that U.K. law requires there to have been physical contact, although some experts believe that prosecution may be possible under existing laws, such as laws against the creation of A.I.-generated child exploitation material.
While this is the first instance of police investigating assault in the metaverse, it isn’t the first instance of assault in virtual reality. In 2022, researcher Nina Jane Patel told the Daily Mail that she was harassed in Meta’s Horizon Venues when a group of male avatars surrounded her, groped her avatar and subjected her to a barrage of sexual innuendo.
Although it hasn’t been revealed which platform the young girl was assaulted on, Meta released a statement in which it said, The kind of behavior described has no place on our platform, which is why for all users we have an automatic protection called personal boundary, which keeps people you don’t know a few feet away from you. Though we weren’t given any details about what happened ahead of this story publishing, we will look into it as details become available to us.”
In addition to the personal-boundary feature, Meta has also implemented a number of features that limit teenage users’ interactions with strangers and exposure to offensive material.
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