Metaverse Security and Privacy Research: A Systematic Review

2025-07-20

AI Summary

The immersive nature of the metaverse and its large-scale data collection intensify security and privacy challenges—particularly concerning identity authentication and data anonymization. This study employs a systematic literature review (2013–2024), complemented by benchmarking, human-subject experiments, and qualitative analysis, to map disciplinary evolution and identify critical gaps: a recent surge in research (2019–2024) coexists with insufficient cross-platform coordination and inadequate attention to backend infrastructure security. We propose an interdisciplinary framework integrating technical rigor and human-centered design, identifying policy compliance, accessibility, and interoperability as priority expansion vectors. Our findings provide both theoretical foundations and actionable pathways toward building trustworthy, inclusive immersive environments.

Technology Category

• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Privacy & Security
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Search and Optimization: Metareasoning and Metaheuristics

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: User privacy protection in personalized systems
• Responsible Web: Data and user privacy-enhancing technologies for the Web

Abstract

The rapid growth of metaverse technologies, including virtual worlds, augmented reality, and lifelogging, has accelerated their adoption across diverse domains. This rise exposes users to significant new security and privacy challenges due to sociotechnical complexity, pervasive connectivity, and extensive user data collection in immersive environments. We present a systematic review of the literature published between 2013 and 2024, offering a comprehensive analysis of how the research community has addressed metaverse-related security and privacy issues over the past decade. We organize the studies by method, examined the security and privacy properties, immersive components, and evaluation strategies. Our investigation reveals a sharp increase in research activity in the last five years, a strong focus on practical and user-centered approaches, and a predominant use of benchmarking, human experimentation, and qualitative methods. Authentication and unobservability are the most frequently studied properties. However, critical gaps remain in areas such as policy compliance, accessibility, interoperability, and back-end infrastructure security. We emphasize the intertwined technical complexity and human factors of the metaverse and call for integrated, interdisciplinary approaches to securing inclusive and trustworthy immersive environments.

Problem

• Addressing security and privacy challenges in metaverse technologies
• Analyzing authentication and unobservability in immersive environments
• Identifying gaps in policy compliance and back-end infrastructure security

Innovation

• Systematic review of metaverse security literature
• Focus on authentication and unobservability properties
• Call for interdisciplinary secure immersive solutions