(Hyper)vulnerability of users of digital environments

Possibility in the Metaverse and proactive mechanisms for the protection of personal data and adequate information

Abstract

The Consumer Defense Code has as its principle the vulnerability of consumers due to contractual asymmetry. However, the contractual imbalance is more accentuated when using digital environments, such as metaverse, due to the treatment of personal data by suppliers. It is proposed to analyze whether there is hypervulnerability of users by limitations to informational self-determination, and how to equalize the consumer-supplier relationship. Although consent, in the LGPD, is one of the legal bases for data processing, there are difficulties for it to be free and clarified, due to the lack of adequate understanding of the consequences of data processing. Using theoretical-bibliographic and deductive research, it was identified that hypervulnerability condition corresponds to a greater vulnerability resulting from the person's personal conditions, which leaves him more exposed to injury, requiring the provider to behave more carefully. And that the using the metaverse will potentiate the collection of personal data through observation. Although it is possible to identify this higher level of vulnerability of users of digital environments under an objective bias, that is, all users are hypervulnerable due to informational inferiority, it is possible to identify a subjective bias, based on the personal condition of the user that made him more susceptible to the injury. Regardless of the conception, the supplier and the Public Power are required to take proactive actions aimed at empowering users to exercise informational self-determination, both through the architecture of virtual environments and through Public Policies to clarify users about the implications of processing personal data.

Keywords: Hypervulnerability. Metaverse. Data protection.