British police are investigating the alleged gang rape of a girl’s avatar in a virtual reality game, in what is believed to be the first probe of its kind involving the metaverse.
The alleged victim, identified only as a girl under 16, was wearing a virtual reality headset in an immersive game when her avatar, an animated representation of her, was raped by those of several men, the Daily Mail first reported.
Although the accuser did not sustain any physical injuries, she may have suffered trauma similar to someone who’d been raped in real life, police sources told the outlet.
“There is an emotional and psychological impact on the victim that is longer-term than any physical injuries,” a senior officer familiar with the case told the outlet.
Still, UK authorities fear it might be impossible to prosecute under existing laws, which define sexual assault as physical touching in a sexual manner without consent.
The investigation has raised questions about whether police should be using time and limited resources to investigate metaverse crimes while struggling with a substantial backlog of in-person rape cases.
But Home Secretary James Cleverly defended the trailblazing VR rape probe.
“I know it is easy to dismiss this as being not real, but the whole point of these virtual environments is they are incredibly immersive,” the senior politician told LBC’s “Nick Ferrari at Breakfast” program.
“And we’re talking about a child here, and a child has gone through sexual trauma,” he added.
“It will have had a very significant psychological effect and we should be very, very careful about being dismissive of this.”
Cleverly also argued that someone willing to rape a child’s avatar in a video game “may well be someone that could go on to do terrible things in the physical realm.”
Ian Critchley, the lead for child protection and abuse investigation at the National Police Chiefs’ Council, echoed Cleverly’s words, telling the Mail that the metaverse creates a “gateway” for predators to victimize children.
Critchley highlighted the need for the continued evolution of policing methods to address crimes being committed online and for the passage of relevant laws, and he also called on tech companies to do more to keep their users safe.
There have been several reports of virtual sex crimes in Horizon Worlds — a free VR game operated by Facebook’s parent company, Meta.
A senior police investigator told the Mail that the metaverse has become “rife” with online sex crimes and other types of offenses, including virtual thefts, but so far there have been no prosecutions in the UK.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
