Interpol is Figuring Out How to Start Policing the Metaverse

By now, the authorities’ ability to police internet-related crimes has become a running joke. Many believe governments and policing agencies aren’t able to keep up with the rate at which technology is expanding and becoming more complex. Cybercriminals, meanwhile, are extremely capable when it comes to adapting to new technologies and using these to further their agendas.

The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO), or Interpol, seems to agree and now aims to get ahead of the criminals by integrating its services with the metaverse. After launching its own official virtual offices in the metaverse last year, Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock now reveals the agency is also looking into how it can start policing the virtual universe.

Interpol’s first-ever Global Crime Trend report shows crime keeps becoming more digitized, and highlights the increased threat of ransomware, phishing, and online scams. Secretary General Stock is concerned about how these crimes will develop alongside the fast-growing metaverse, which is why they’d like to have a strong presence in the VR before crime syndicates have time to take over it and become ungovernable.

This mirrors similar sentiments recently mentioned by the World Economic Forum, which has partnered with a panel of experts to discuss strategies for governing the metaverse. 

Interpol Launches Virtual Metaverse Office

In an unexpected move, Interpol launched its own virtual offices in the metaverse in October 2022, at the 90th Interpol General Assembly in New Delhi, India. The event showcased the new offices by giving attendees virtual tours of the space, which has been modeled after the Interpol General Secretariat headquarters in Lyon, France.

At the event, registered users could also interact with other officers via their avatars. Interpol even hosted immersive virtual training courses in forensic investigation and other policing methods to show off the capabilities of this technology.

Interpol’s virtual world on the metaverse is provided through the INTERPOL Secure Cloud, which apparently ensures its neutrality. According to Stock, immersing law enforcement in the latest technologies is critical to understanding how they function and will help with rooting out possible threats. 

Understanding and pre-empting crime trends is an absolute bedrock of policing.

Jürgen Stock, INTERPOL Secretary General

To this effect, Interpol also announced it’s establishing an “Expert Group on the Metaverse” who is tasked with representing the concerns of law enforcement on the global stage. The agency says this will help ensure the new virtual world is secure by design. 

It seems these ideals face a number of challenges, however, as authorities are uncertain about how virtual reality should be policed. Especially when it comes to events and circumstances that are not specifically covered by any law.

Experts Express Concern Over How the Metaverse and VR Should be Policed

Despite the agency’s apparent enthusiasm about regulating the metaverse, its experts are struggling to agree on how to approach this task. Madan Oberoi, Interpol’s executive director of technology and innovation says he’s unsure whether some actions, like sexual harassment, should be handled similarly when done in virtual reality compared to real life.

There are crimes where I don’t know whether it can still be called a crime or not. If you look at the definitions of these crimes in physical space, and you try to apply it in the metaverse, there is a difficulty.

Madan Oberoi, INTERPOL Executive Director of Technology and Innovation

Nina Jane Patel, co-founder and head of metaverse research organization, Kabuni, disagrees and told BBC that illegal actions in the real world should be illegal in the virtual world too. She continued by saying it would become very difficult to distinguish between what’s socially acceptable in virtual reality compared to real life if the authorities don’t draw clear lines. 

Oberoi continued by saying he’s unsure whether they can call certain cases a crime in the same vein or not, but acknowledges the problem. He also stated it’s difficult to raise awareness about these issues. As the metaverse grows, it will invite more unsavory interactions and malicious predators. Interpol is concerned crimes like “data theft, financial fraud, ransomware, phishing, and sexual assault and harassment” will become a hefty problem.

The World Economic Forum has also warned about social engineering scams, violent extremism, and misinformation which could become particular challenges. Seeing as these types of digital crimes and concerns break traditional border rules, Interpol feels it’s the agency’s duty to police digital worlds. It wants to identify the threats from the onset and work with stakeholders, like Meta, in shaping the necessary governance framework.

According to Interpol, having these conversations now will enable all involved parties to build an effective response network to the expected rise in metaverse crime. 

Policing Virtual Reality: Safety First or Orwellian Nightmare?

So far, the metaverse hasn’t taken off as much as creator Meta — and by extension, Mark Zuckerberg — had hoped. The virtual worlds currently available seem like bland corporate environments (and Interpol’s addition certainly doesn’t change that). People haven’t exactly taken to the idea of virtual online interactions as well as initially projected. Despite that, interest in VR, AR, and MR and its growth, especially in terms of work and social play, is increasing.

Interpol is right, though, increased interest comes with increased security and privacy risks, and we’ve already seen plenty of evidence to support it too. Since its launch in 2021, Meta’s two metaverse worlds, Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues, have seen multiple sexual harassment complaints. Researchers also looked at one of the most popular social VR apps, VR Chat, and found at least 100 potential violations of Facebook’s VR policies in 11.5 hours of in-app footage.

Interpol is right, though, increased interest comes with increased security and privacy risks, and we’ve already seen plenty of evidence to support it too. Since its launch in 2021, Meta’s two metaverse worlds, Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues, have seen multiple sexual harassment complaints. Researchers also looked at one of the most popular social VR apps, VR Chat, and found at least 100 potential violations of Facebook’s VR policies in 11.5 hours of in-app footage.

These issues do necessitate some form of content moderation and real consequences for offenders to curb inappropriate behavior. Despite this, the idea of a policing body governing behavior in virtual reality comes across as dystopian. The internet is already rife with constant monitoring by all sorts of parties, including governments, and the idea of that extending to VR doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

It’s one thing for someone living in an authoritarian country, for example, to moderate their behavior and language on social media to avoid persecution. Imagine how hard and nightmarish it would be to have to curb your behavior in life-like simulated reality to avoid angering politicians. 

On top of that, many people already use privacy and security tools like VPNs to protect their identities and secure their digital freedom online. If VR truly becomes as big as Meta hopes it will be, it’s likely people will have to adopt new methods of protecting themselves as well.