Overview | Seminar on “Legal Risks and Countermeasures in the Development of the Metauniverse”

On September 28th, the seminar on “Legal Risks and Countermeasures in the Development of the Metauniverse”, sponsored by Tongji Law School, the People's Procuratorate of Yangpu District, and organized by the Law Clinic of Tongji University and MetroData Tech, was held through Tencent Meeting and the Metauniverse Conference, with nearly 60 experts and scholars from research institutes, legal practice departments, data industry and other fields in universities across the country participating in the seminar online. The conference was broadcast live on the Wechat channels of Suanli Think Tank and MetroData Tech.

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Host: JIN Zegang, Director of the Criminal Law Teaching and Research Department of Tongji Law School, Director of the Criminal Law Research Center, Professor and doctoral supervisor

JIANG Huiling, Dean of Tongji Law School and Director of Shanghai Collaborative Innovation Center of AI Social Governance, stated in his speech that the metauniverse is the integration and upgradation of data technology, and each updating and upgrading of information technology will become an important factor affecting economic development, scientific and technological progress, social order, rights and obligations. As a perfect combination of digital technology and artificial intelligence technology, the metauniverse can not only be used as a positive force to promote science, technology and the growth of social wealth, but also may become an incentive to affect social order and trigger legal risks. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly improve the governance and management capabilities of emerging technologies, including the metauniverse, improve the technology supply mode, deeply discuss the underlying logic of technical support, improve the legal risk prevention and control level of the metauniverse related industries, ensure the credibility of cyberspace technology in the era of big data, and effectively protect the rights of legal subjects.

KANG Qiang, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Chief Procurator of Shanghai Yangpu District Procuratorate, stated in his speech that as an interactive space between virtual and real, the metauniverse has gathered the top technologies of present scientific progress and technological development. New technology will change the world as well as the law. We legal practitioners shall focus not only on the change of technology itself, but also on the changes brought by the development of technology to the boundary of rights and obligations and the red line between crime and non-crime. The legal risks that may exist in the application of technology during the development and implementation of the metauniverse include data security and property security risks, which will also bring up challenges of criminal risks. How to avoid these risks and challenges and minimize the negative impact of the metauniverse requires systematic theoretical research and institutional design at the legal level. It is hoped that this seminar will trigger active answers, free speech, and jointly contribution to the development and governance of the metauniverse.

YU Gaizhi, professor and doctoral supervisor of Koguan School of Law, said in her speech that data security and data sharing are the basic goals of data governance. Influenced by the concept of data empowerment, the current criminal law has adopted a control mode, which focuses on prohibiting the “acquisition”, “disclosure” and “theft” of data, and preventing data abuse in advance. The control mode ignores the public product nature of data, and cannot protect the legal interests of the data comprehensively and effectively, resulting in the inability to effectively maintain data security and realize data sharing. The utilization mode aimed at regulating abuse is the realistic direction of the adjustment of criminal law data governance mode. The utilization mode can be realized based on the following paths: special provisions set in the general provisions of criminal law to guide the interpretation of the legal interests; properly restrict the legislation of control mode and maximize the independent value of data; the crime of abusing algorithm and the crime of illegally providing algorithm service shall be added to make up for the shortage of current criminal law norms; actively explore the reasons for preventing data related crimes from breaking the law, and avoid inhibiting the realization of data sharing goals due to excessive criminal intervention.

YAN Li, founder and president of Suanli Think Tank: The metauniverse is a virtual reality environment, with highly immersive scene interactive applications and experiences, a user-led network ecosystem, and an economic closed-loop based on the virtual world. In the metauniverse, users have digital identities and assets that can be represented by digital codes, and the codes are closely related to laws. The underlying logic formula of the core technology of the metauniverse can be summarized as follows: blockchain+communication technology+computing technology+generation technology+display technology. At the same time, the metauniverse is faced with risks such as computing pressure, privacy disclosure and intellectual property infringement.

GU Wei, Deputy Director and Prosecutor of the Third Procuratorial Department of the Xuhui District Procuratorate: The data risk in the metauniverse exists in the three stages of the formation of the metauniverse concept, its early operation and its mature development. This risk may cause the infringement of three legal interests, including information system security, space order and individual rights and interests. From the perspective of criminal legal regulation, data crimes are divided into four categories: acquisition, fraud, attack, and related crimes. In order to better manage data, we can further optimize and improve governance measures from criminal policies, criminal rules, and criminal supervision.

ZHANG Yong, professor and doctoral supervisor of East China University of Political Science and Law, discusses the responsibility ethics of data security criminal compliance in the metauniverse from four aspects: data security risk issues in the metauniverse, responsibility ethics and data security risk response, responsibility ethics basis for data security compliance, and responsibility ethics and data security criminal compliance. He stated that the metauniverse is a data space built on the basis of digital technology, and we should focus on the concept of altruism and risk response and view corporate compliance with the concept of responsibility ethics, so as to make up for the lag of criminal law and promote the country, government and society to jointly protect data security. For the new social risks in the metauniverse, we also need to start with the transformation of governance methods and the innovation of key legal systems, from static rule governance to dynamic responsive governance.

YIN Jianfeng, Vice Dean, professor and doctoral supervisor of Law School of Beijing Normal University: As a new product, the sustainable development of the metauniverse cannot be separated from the protection of the legal system. Specifically, the functions of this standard are as follows: to pave the way for standardizing the personality of the virtual subject; to ensure the transaction, payment and data security of the normal operation of the meta cosmic economic and social system; rooted in data security and data processing, it conducts external supervision on the development and application of the metauniverse. At the same time, in data governance, we should focus on ensuring the algorithm is good, pay attention to data security, and ensure the healthy and orderly development of the metauniverse.

LU Qinzhong, professor and doctoral supervisor of East China University of Political Science and Law, said that strengthening the governance of data issues in the field of the metauniverse is significant for national strategy, data security and technological competition. In the process of data governance in the metauniverse, it is of practical importance to shift from the data control mode to the data utilization mode, but at this stage, it is still necessary to find a path to simultaneously step on both paths and balance the relationship between the two. At the same time, there is still room for in-depth discussion on the establishment of charges and judicial application in the field of data crime.

WANG Huawei, assistant professor and master supervisor of Peking University School of Law: As a virtual world on the Internet, the underlying logic of the metauniverse is the driven force of data. Therefore, the criminal law protection of data is the basic condition. At present, the criminal law protection of data in China is still not close to sufficient and perfect, and the data criminal law protection model in Germany is worthy of reference. In China, there is still room for systematic optimization on the constitutive elements of data crimes, such as the crime of violating citizens’ personal information and the crime of illegally obtaining computer information system data.