Virtual reality risks to children will only worsen without coordinated action
In this article, our Executive Director Iain Drennan reflects on how without coordinated action, virtual reality risks to children will only worsen.
Only a few days into 2024, we woke to an alarming Daily Mail news report of UK police investigating an alleged rape in the metaverse, after a child’s avatar was attacked in a virtual reality game by several adult men.
Sadly, this news is indicative of new and emerging threats to the sexual abuse and exploitation of children which we are struggling to curtail as a global community.
Less than 12 months ago, WeProtect Global Alliance published a briefing on Extended Reality (XR) technologies and child sexual exploitation and abuse. The paper, developed together with Professor Emma Barrett OBE from The University of Manchester, highlighted how XR technologies provide new ways of Producing Child Sexual Abuse Material, building on existing methods (like live webcam abuse) and extending tools and techniques that are already common in adult XR pornography.
It outlined how child sexual abuse offenders may take advantage of the same technology to live-stream sexual abuse in virtual reality or augmented, influenced by chat room visitors and including the use of haptic devices. In this way, physical sexual abuse of children could thus be perpetrated by offenders who are not physically co-located with their victims.
The paper called for regulators and lawmakers to ensure that XR harms are covered by existing or new legislation and policy. It also called for meaningful consultation across a wide range of stakeholders, for XR tech platforms to implement safety by design measures to prevent harm from occurring in the first place, and for further investment in research and development to support criminal investigation and prosecutions.
In particular, the paper pre-empted the need for “innovative thinking and new tools for digital investigation and digital forensics, and consideration of how evidence of child abuse activity in XR could be laid before a jury.” The same issues now being discussed in the UK case which emerged this week.
Our concerns about XR were also reinforced in our 2023 Global Threat Assessment report last October, which highlighted that, in a world-first, UK police forces recorded eight instances of VR use in child sexual abuse-related crime reports in 2022.
According to the Threat Assessment, the global market for XR is forecasted to surpass $1.1 trillion by 2030. It is likely offenders will increasingly exploit XR technologies as they become more accessible and affordable While there are signs of slowing enthusiasm and investment in the metaverse, the general upwards trajectory remains undeniable.
There is some encouraging proactive work being done to protect children. For example, the XR Safety Initiative is working on a child safety framework that will identify ways of safeguarding children in XR. Also, the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Extended Reality which brings together interdisciplinary, cross-sector groups to identify standards and practice recommendations to increase the ethical and safe development of XR technologies. Pockets of good practice exist within industry and safety by design principles continue to be at the forefront of regulation in countries like Australia and the UK.
However regulation and safeguards are still lagging behind the development of new technologies. We are living in the age of steadily expanding borderless crime where child sexual abuse and exploitation online continues grow at an alarming rate, becoming ever more complex as technologies like AI and XR develop, converge and are exploited by offenders. Urgent, coordinated and global action is needed if we are to get ahead of and prevent a growing tidal wave.
Read the full reports:
Extended Reality technologies and child sexual exploitation and abuse – WeProtect Global Alliance