Metaverse and Digital Identity

The Web 3.0 gives people massive customization options and freedoms to represent themselves as they want on the metaverse. Unlike in real-life, people use avatars to represent themselves and can customize everything from hair style, outfits, skin tone, to even species.
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Ready Player Me is an easy-to-use platform that allows users to create, customize their 3D avatars, and even trade it on a marketplace. The system also provides premade options that allows users to upload a selfie and generate the avatar automatically.

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What does this mean? It means we can surpass the physical boundary and avatars will represent a player in more imaginative or realistic ways. It is great in a way that we can be our "true self" (or whoever we want) online and build relationships there. For example, for people who are self-abased by their imperfect body or who are not confident enough to speak out in real life, the avatar can be a disguise for them. On the other hand, the digital world is great but we still live in the physical world. Living the best life in virtual world doesn't solve any real life problem. There is also potential risk of being trapped in that virtual world and confuse it with reality.

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What about using avatars in the working environment? Some people argue that using avatars online allow them to express themselves better and have a more authenticate interaction with others. The whole upfront metaverse environment can also spark their creativity. But current versions of metaverse for work all have real-world mappings. So the extent of how creative/fun the environment would be is still unsure. It also remains a question if companies would give full autonomy to employees on their avatar appearances.

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In terms of the safety and privacy concerns, the Self-sovereign identity (SSI) movement recognize that individuals should have own control of their digital identity and protected privacy. The decentralized identifiers (DIDs) allow users to use their digital wallet and authenticate the ownership using the issued credentials and thus no information need to be saved on a centralized server. This self-sovereign digital identity gives users full control of their identity and allows multiple avatars across different metaverses.