Metaverse and Privacy

Matthias Artzt, Senior Legal Counsel, Deutsche Bank AG, Germany

From Facebook’s recent decision to rename itself "Meta" to Epic Games’ billion-dollar investment in metaverse technologies, the metaverse has dominated the news and will likely continue to do so over the next years. To date, there is no universally accepted definition for the term "metaverse", and, for many, it suggests a new but still undeveloped future of the internet. According to J.P. Morgan, the metaverse is a seamless convergence of our physical and digital lives, creating a unified, virtual community where we can work, play, relax, transact and socialize. That said, most conceptualizations of the metaverse include the use of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and avatars, connected by a massive network.

Dr. Matthias Artzt is a certified lawyer and senior legal counsel at Deutsche Bank AG since 1999. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank he worked as a lawyer at a law firm in Stuttgart, Germany. He has been practicing data protection law for many years and was particularly involved in the implementation of the GDPR within Deutsche Bank AG. He advises internal clients globally regarding data protection issues as well as complex international outsourcing agreements involving data privacy related matters and regulations. He is a graduate of the University of Tübingen, where he obtained his Doctor of Law degree. Moreover, he is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) and since January 2018 a Certified Information Privacy Professional/Europe (CIPP/E). He was also a member of the European Advisory Board of the IAPP. Matthias is the author of numerous articles on data protection law. Particularly, he is the co-editor and co-author of the recently released Handbook of Blockchain Law (published by Wolters Kluwer). Further, he is a regular panel speaker on various national and international conferences, seminars and webinars, e.g. at the Central Bank of Brazil in 2018. He has an in-depth knowledge of the GDPR and its interfaces with other topics such as Cloud Computing, Big Data, AI, Blockchain, US-Cloud Act and PSD2.

Deutsche Bank AG