The rapid expansion of the metaverse will leave police facing a whole new raft of challenges and potential criminality; in the second in a series of articles highlighting key topics and debates from last week’s UK Police Digital Summit, Policing Insight’s Graham Jarvis spoke to technology expert Dr David Nugent about policing the metaverse, the balance between free speech and accountability, and how verified digital identities could help to reduce and detect crime while freeing up police resources.