The British guard dog will warm up Meta for the safety of the children in VR

The target is faced with more control access to child safety. He reported to the Office of the British Information Commissioner (ICO). Guard in statement to plan “further discussions” with Met o Search 2 Compliance of VR headsets with the recently established children’s code that gives priority to the “best interests” of young users. The watchdog wants to determine if Meta’s headphones and VR services do enough to protect children’s privacy and data.

Baroness Beeban Kidron, who developed the code, was concerned that Meta’s platform made it too easy for children to report and risked abuse, harassment and explicit content. Meta may require a Facebook account (and therefore the user is at least 13 years old), but this does not mean that it implements the necessary code age checks. Children can jump into potentially dangerous VR chat rooms just by “ticking the box” to say they are old enough, Kidron said.

A spokesman for Meta said Guard the internet giant was “committed” to adhering to the children’s code and was “convinced” that his VR hardware met the code’s requirements. The representative stressed that the terms of service do not allow children under the age of 13 to use the products, but did not address concerns that it was too easy for children to ignore the policy. The company has already promised a $ 50 million program to keep it safe metaverse development complied with laws and regulations.

The UK could impose a wide range of penalties if the ICO finds Meta violated the code. While officials could do little more than issue warnings, they could also fine Meta either a fixed amount of up to £ 17.5 million (about $ 23.8 million) or as much as 4 percent of its global turnover – over $ 10 billion. There is at least some pressure on Meta to tighten the safety of children in VR, even if it’s just about protecting the company’s finances.