What does the Metaverse mean for security?

I think we first need to understand that ‘Metaverse’ is not some new technology, but rather a new view at how humans interact with technology. As an industry, we’ve been slow to leverage and trust technologies that can help us make sense of our sensor-driven world. We’re often still stuck at sending in a human to validate what an analytic has already told us. What’s driving this mistrust is that the data is presented in a two-dimensional form and humans think in 3D. Emerging technologies will help bridge that gap by enabling a 3D view of our environments that will supply data beyond just the visual range to eventually include the sense of hearing, touch and feel, and even at some point, a sense of smell through advanced analytics. Enabling a true, multi-sensory, virtual presence will fundamentally change the way we interact with environments and how we secure our facilities.

The Metaverse is a virtual universe, where digital representations exist for spaces, objects, people, transactions, etc. For practical purposes, the Metaverse is essentially a digital twin of physical reality, i.e., a digital representation of indoor and outdoor spaces such as buildings, cities, airports, stadiums, etc. Key uses include:

• Visualisation: Imagine security personnel being able to ‘walk through’ the 3-D digital twin of a facility, while getting real-time video and data from cameras and sensors.
• Collaboration: Using digital twins, architects, IT providers and security systems designers can easily visualise and collaborate, when designing a facility.
• Simulation: Responses to threats and events can be simulated to achieve desired outcomes, enhancing safety/security for real-world incidents.
• Training: A lot of machines, robots, and self-driving vehicles all use AI (artificial intelligence) these days. The AI models need to be ‘trained’, and it is less expensive to train them using synthetic data in the digital realm.

When people talk about security in the Metaverse, there are usually two primary concerns: individual identities and digital assets. Blockchain technology and tokenisation are the two key elements for securing identities and assets in the Metaverse. Tokenisation means replacing sensitive information with non-sensitive information and storing the sensitive information safely elsewhere, like how museums will display a replica of a painting and keep the real one in a safe. To stick with the analogy, blockchain technology means that a safe is completely transparent. Everyone could see what was inside, so there’s public accountability, but only one person would have the key to the safe. Individual identities are a bit more complex than digital assets, but can ultimately benefit from the same technology. Currently, online identities are siloed on particular websites and applications. This is likely how Metaverse identities will initially operate, as individual identities tied to particular 3D worlds. But, interoperability is a major focus of Metaverse developers.

The Metaverse is an exciting development in the digital world, but we must remember that protecting people’s data is paramount. The key thing is to change the way we think about capturing people’s personal data – it’s private - and people’s personal data should be obscured as standard when stored, and in some cases, when in use, to avoid any risks from hacking. With the use of avatars and open platforms in the Metaverse, there are more risks around child safety content moderating and using biometrics to authenticate individuals. Knowing who’s who in these environments is a concern, and the Metaverse will amplify the current issues we are seeing with online platforms – putting pressure on policy reform and pushing leading platforms to do more, in order to keep their users safe, while continue innovating new products, especially when more of us are wearing head mounted cameras and microphones around our homes and offices.

The Metaverse is a really interesting concept, using augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and blockchain to replace some of our offline interactions completely. At TDSi, we have been mulling over the idea of using this approach, with the possibility of bringing training and demos into the Metaverse, in order to make it more convenient for some of our partners and customers, by avoiding physical travel. I think we have all seen the power of online interactions, during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, but the flipside is that we have also seen the drawbacks too. We are yet to reach a stage, where online conversations can be as fluid and natural as face-to-face ones. You also miss the ability to enjoy informal ad-hoc conversations, as the technology does not really lend itself to that yet. Certainly, our ideas about using the Metaverse are now at an embryonic stage. There is a way to go before this technology starts to be adopted by the masses, but we will fully embrace it when (or if) they do.