The Self-sovereign Way to the Value-sensitive Metaverse

The metaverse is poised to significantly transform how humans experience cyberspace, necessitating novel approaches to defining digital identity. Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) has emerged as a potential solution for designing an identity layer for the metaverse, with proof-of-concept models for decentralized access currently under discussion among scholars and technologists. Adopting a socio-technical perspective, this paper examines the values that should underpin digital identity solutions for the metaverse. The analysis highlights control over identity and interoperability as fundamental components of any viable identity solution in this context. Using Value Sensitive Design as an analytical framework, the paper evaluates two proposals for applying SSI to the metaverse. While these proposals advocate for decentralized identification methods that facilitate cross-platform access, they also encounter challenges related to usability and achieving fully interoperable services across metaverse platforms.