For a secure and protected metaverse
The PRIME – Privacy in the Metaverse project researches how new virtual worlds can be reconciled with personal rights and data protection.
Our Motivation
The PRIME Mission
Our Vision
Explore interfaces and design practices
Design and evaluation of user interfaces and design practices that enable users to effectively exercise their right to privacy within the metaverse and, among other things, adequately support their consent and protect themselves from harassment and assault.
Develop evaluation metrics for metaverse platforms
Development and testing of metrics to evaluate the design of virtual content on metaverse platforms about their impact on user privacy to curb dark patterns and deceptive designs in the metaverse, among other things.
Testing participatory design processes
Research and testing of innovative design and development processes with the help of users' opinions concerning user interfaces and metrics can be collected both by means of classical methods of usability research and with the help of methods used in the metaverse itself.
Results
Our findings from the research process
The PRiME Blog
Publications
- Franke, F., Xie, R., & Morschheuser, B. (2025). User perspectives on law-sensitive design in the metaverse – Balancing design, regulation, and acceptance. In M. Friedewald & M. Karaboga (Eds.), Privacy, data protection and digital policy in times of crisis. Poster-Proceedings. Research Papers of the Platform Privacy (No. 5). Fraunhofer ISI. https://doi.org/10.24406/publica-5446
- Büning, F. (2025). Das Metaverse: Eine Utopie im Zeitalter des Datenschutzes? Zeitschrift für Datenschutz Aktuell, 2025(6), 01194
- Büning, F., & Meyer, M. (2025). PIMS und das Metaverse: Ein Weg aus dem „Einwilligungs-Banner-Dschungel“? Zeitschrift für Datenschutzrecht, 2025(09), 490–495.
- Grün, J. (2024, 9. October). Virtuelle Welten, reale Daten: Strategieansätze für Privatsphäre und Schutz im Metaversum. Bertelsmann Stiftung. reframe [Tech].
- Hubert, T., Büning, F., El-Rifaai, M., Franke, F., Kern, M., Kettner, S. E., Lell, O., Meyer, M., Xie, R., Morschheuser, B., Thorun, C. & Wiebe, A. (in Druck). Privacy by Design: Schutz der Privatheit im Metaverse durch De-signpraktiken am Beispiel ausgewählter Gefahren für Datenschutz und Per-sönlichkeitsrechte. In Friedewald, M., Roßnagel, A., Geminn, C. L., Mag. i-ur., & Karaboga, M. (Hrsg.). (2025). Freiheit in digitalen Infrastrukturen (1. Aufl., Bd. 5). Nomos. Seite 285 – 318. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748953371
- Kern, M. (2024). Die Verwendung von Social Bots: Transparenzpflichten gemäß Medienstaatsvertrag und KI-VO sowie deren Umsetzung in virtuellen Welten. Künstliche Intelligenz und Recht, 3(2024), 94–99.
- Xie, R., Kirchner-Krath, J. & Morschheuser, B. (2024). Towards an ethical metaverse: A systematic literature review on privacy challenges. Thirty-Second European Conference On Information Systems (ECIS 2024), Paphos, Cyprus.
- XR HUB Bavaria. (2024, 30. April). Fünf Fragen an das Forschungskonsortium PRiMe.
Events
- JOSEPHS – Offenes Innovationslabor. (2025, July - November). Interaktive Ausstellung zu Privatheit im Metaverse [Exhibition]. JOSEPHS – Innovationslabor, Nürnberg, Germany.
- Franke, F., Xie, R., & Morschheuser, B. (2025, 1. - 2. October). User Perspectives on Law-Sensitive Design in the Metaverse – Balancing Design, Regulation, and Acceptance [Poster]. Annual Conference Plattform Privatheit 2025, Berlin, Germany.
- XR Hub Bavaria Nürnberg. (2025, 8. July). XR Day 2025 – Dein Tag rund um Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality und Metaverse [Event]. IHK Nürnberg für Mittelfranken, Nürnberg, Germany.
- BIT – Bamberger Informatik Tag (2025, 27. June). [Event]. Fakultät Wirtschaftsinformatik und Angewandte Informatik. Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany.
- 6. Nacht des Wissens Göttingen. (2025, 21. June). [Event]. Göttingen, Germany.
- Büning, F. (2025, 14. February). Privacy by design im Metaverse – Risiken und Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten [Conference presentation]. Göttinger Forum IT-Recht, Göttingen, Germany.
- Hubert, T., & Lell, O. (2024, 17. October). Privacy by Design: Schutz der Privatheit im Metaverse durch Designpraktiken am Beispiel ausgewählter Gefahren für Datenschutz und Persönlichkeitsrechte [Conference presentation]. Plattform Privatheit Annual Conference 2024, Berlin, Germany.
- Deutsches Museum Nürnberg. (2024, February - September). Sonderausstellung Metaverse: Phänomenal Digital? [Exhibition]. Nürnberg, Germany.
- Gamification Expo (2024, 08. August). [Event]. Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen – Nürnberg.
- ECIS. (2024, 13. - 19. June). 32nd European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2024): “People First: Constructing Digital Futures Together”. [Workshop]. Paphos, Cyprus.
- GG Bavaria. (2024). [Event].
- Morschheuser, B. (2023, 10. November). The Metaverse. [Conference presentation]. FAU Siemens RIE Erlangen-Nürnberg Conference 2023. Beyond Digital: it´s all about value.
- Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften: Nürnberg – Fürth – Erlangen. (2023, 21. October). [Event].
- Kinder- und Jugendgipfel Erlangen. (2023, 30. September). [Event]. Erlangen, Germany.
- StartPlay. (2023, 28. September). StartPlay 2023: Interdisziplinäre Konferenz zu Gamification & Innovation. [Event]. Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany.
Timeline
Five steps toward a secure metaverse
Timeframe: 1.7.2023 - 30.6.2026
Projectteam
Our Team
Prof. Dr. Christian Thorun
Lead
Christian is the Managing Director of the ConPolicy Institute and an expert in consumer policy issues. In the PRiME project, he leads the research consortium and is responsible for successfully implementing the overall project.
Dr. Sara Elisa Kettner
Project Lead
As a behavioural economist, Sara manages consumer policy projects in the field of responsible digitalization at ConPolicy. She leads the PRiME project and is responsible for the overall coordination of the work packages and project management and planning. She is also involved in the empirical work.
Dr. Otmar Lell
Project Team| Data Protection
Otmar brings insights from his other research activities into the incentive effects of business models for user interfaces and design practices. He also conducts focus group discussions with citizens on their expectations of a consumer-friendly metaverse.
Florian Franke
Project Team
Florian contributes his quantitative and political science background. In particular, he is responsible for the implementation of the representative survey and the scientific communication of the project.
Dr. Julius Rauber
Project Team
As an economist with extensive experience in evaluating technical aspects from a consumer perspective, Julius is particularly responsible for the development and validation of metrics to evaluate the privacy-friendliness of metaverse content design.
Sophia Dasch
Project Team
As a psychologist with particular expertise in experimental design, Sophia is involved in the design of the field experiments used to test demonstrators for privacy-friendly user interfaces and design practices.
Prof. Dr. Benedikt Morschheuser
Sub-Project Lead | Metaverse Research
Benedikt heads the Gamification Research Group at the University of Bamberg. In the project, Benedikt is in charge of the work packages at the University of Bamberg. A particular focus here is on the development of design knowledge for a privacy-friendly metaverse.
Runjie Xie
Project Team | Metaverse Reasearch
Runjie is a research associate in the Gamification Research Group at the University of Bamberg. Runjie develops design knowledge for a privacy-friendly metaverse.
Prof. Dr. Andreas Wiebe
Sub-Project Lead | Data Protection Law
Andreas chairs the Department of Civil Law, Competition and Intellectual Property Law, Media and Information Law at the University of Göttingen. He is in charge of the project section for legal analysis, in particular data protection.
Felix Büning
Project Team | Data Protection Law
Felix is a research assistant and doctoral candidate at the Georg-August University of Göttingen. In the PRiME project, he develops solutions for data protection issues.
Markus Mayer
Project Team | Data Protection Law
Markus is a research assistant and doctoral candidate at the Georg-August University of Göttingen. In the PRiME project, he develops solutions for data protection issues.
Prof. Dr. Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider
Sub-Project Lead | Personal Rights
Louisa is a legal scholar and university lecturer at the University of Bonn. She is in charge of the sub-project for legal analyses, in particular personal rights.
Daniel Winter
Project Team | Personal Rights
Daniel works as a research assistant at the chair of Prof. Dr. Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider in Bonn, where he is doing his doctorate on issues of data management law. Daniel conducts research at the University of Bonn on issues of privacy protection in the metaverse and on user-friendly data trust models.
Nabiel Hakim
Project Team | Personal Rights
Nabiel works as a research assistant at the chair of Prof. Dr. Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider in Bonn. He conducts research in the PRiME project at the University of Bonn on questions of privacy protection in the metaverse.
Thomas Lenz
Project Assistant | Personal Rights
Thomas works as a student assistant at the chair of Prof. Dr. Specht-Riemenschneider in Bonn. Thomas supports the Bonn project partners in their work, particularly in terms of public relations.
Former Employees
- Marwan El-Rifaai (University Bonn)
- Michael Kern (University Bonn)
- Tom Hubert (University Göttingen)
- Dr. Jeanine Kirchner-Krath (University Bamberg)
- Gesine Marks (ConPolicy)
(Former) student Employees
- Carolin Basaric (ConPolicy)
- Lea Memmert (ConPolicy)
- Josephine Bokowski (ConPolicy)
- Niels Hansen (ConPolicy)
- Nils Rütten (ConPolicy)
- Lea Schäfer (University Göttingen)
- Johanna Grün (ConPolicy)
- Dominik Moretti (ConPolicy)
- Toni Wunsch (ConPolicy)
