IET’s metaverse safety report makes national news

Its launch coincided with the latest reading in parliament of the UK Government’s new Online Safety Bill and we’re calling on politicians and policymakers to ensure comprehensive measures for regulating activity taking place within VR and the metaverse are included within the final Bill – a major gap which has implications for online safety such as harassment and abuse. 

The report is co-authored by Catherine Allen, Member of the IET’s Digital Policy Panel, and CEO of VR consultancy Limina Immersive and Verity McIntosh, University of the West of England.

To supplement the report, we commissioned some new consumer research with parents and their children to gauge their understanding and appetite for this new immersive space.

Our industry-leading experts predict that the next generation will spend approximately 10 years in VR over the course of their lifetime – around 2 hours 45 minutes per day. However, over 90% of parents feel uncomfortable letting their children explore the metaverse through VR unsupervised and of those parents who have children already interacting with the metaverse, over a quarter (26%) admitted they did not know what their child was accessing.

To find out more about this research, please read our press release - Generation VR.

IET Honorary Fellow and child safety advocate Carol Vorderman M.A.(Cantab) MBE, who fully supported the report and our call to action, spoke alongside co-author Catherine Allen to multiple national media outlets.

These included Good Morning Britain, MailOnline, City A.M, MSN Online, Daily Star Online, BBC Woman’s Hour, Jeremy Vine on 5, Politics Home, The House Magazine, E&T magazine, Voltimum and Electronic Specifier.