Framing metaverse identity: A multidimensional framework for governing digital selves

Liang Yang, Yan Xu and Pan Hui

Telecommunications Policy, 2025, vol. 49, issue 3

Abstract: This paper proposes a multidimensional framework for Metaverse Identity, addressing its definition, guiding principles, and critical challenges. Metaverse Identity is conceptualized as a user’s digital self, encompassing personal attributes, data footprints, social roles, and economic elements. To elucidate its core characteristics and implications, this framework introduces two guiding principles: Equivalence and Alignment and Fusion and Expansiveness. The first principle advocates for consistency between metaverse and real-world identities in behavioral norms and social standards, ensuring rights protection and establishing conduct guidelines. The second emphasizes the deep integration and transformative evolution of metaverse identities, enabling them to transcend real-world constraints, meet diverse needs, and foster inclusivity. Together, two principles serve as complementary pillars, balancing ethical integration with dynamic co-evolution. Building on this foundation, the study identifies five critical challenges: interoperability, legal boundaries, privacy and identity management, risks from deepfakes and synthetic identities, and identity fragmentation impacting psychological well-being. To address these challenges, strategic recommendations are offered to guide stakeholders. By constructing this framework, the study fills a key theoretical gap, advances systematic research, and provides a foundation for policies and governance strategies to address the complexities of metaverse identities in a rapidly evolving digital domain.

Keywords: Metaverse; Digital Identity; Metaverse Identity; Digital Selves; Artificial intelligence; Interoperability; Privacy; Deepfakes; Synthetic identity; Identity fragmentation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596125000035
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:telpol:v:49:y:2025:i:3:s0308596125000035

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30471/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... /30471/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2025.102906

Access Statistics for this article

Telecommunications Policy is currently edited by Erik Bohlin

More articles in Telecommunications Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().