Privacy & cyber risks vastly exacerbate in the metaverse. More parts of our body, behavior, and inner emotions will be digitized, which results in a larger attack surface and deeper profiling of users. Security breaches may lead to risks to safety of users, e.g., hacking of headsets can lead to physical harm and in virtual reality ‘groping’ is experienced as real and traumatic. But how to implement safety-by-design? Rather than having this debate after the metaverse has materialized, the panel explores new governance options and safety-by-design solutions to ensure a responsible metaverse.