What happens in the avatar stays in the avatar

In virtual spaces, the amount of information that can be collected from an avatar is orders of magnitude higher than the information we can collect from watching and tracking a human being today. The Metaverse, a network of 3D immersive worlds, poses ethical challenges to its participants, among which data privacy protection emerges as paramount. This paper advocates for virtual reality platforms to seriously consider agency and autonomy as pillars of the future abilities of avatars populating their spaces and negotiation mechanisms for allowing users to express the type and amount of data the platform can collect from a user’s avatar. The basic principle is that lacking clear protocols that protect the user, what happens in the avatar must stay in the avatar.