Protecting children in the metaverse: it’s easy to blame big tech, but we all have a role to play

In a recent BBC news investigation, a reporter posing as a 13-year-old girl in a virtual reality (VR) app was exposed to sexual content, racist insults and a rape threat. The app in question, VRChat, is an interactive platform where users can create “rooms” within which people interact (in the form of avatars). The reporter saw avatars simulating sex, and was propositioned by numerous men

Investigating attitudes towards online safety and security, and evaluating a peer-led Internet safety programme for 14– to 16-year-olds: final report

Research Grants 2009 - Harnessing Technology Project. Recognising the significant e-safety issues facing young people, students aged between 14 and 16 were encouraged to engage peer-based activities to raise their own awareness of threats and appropriate responses

Tracking digital impact (TDI) tool.

The Tracking Digital Impact (TDI) tool is designed to help researchers, research groups, projects and institutions assess their current and future digital engagement strategies in an objective and informed way to support the development of new and improved strategies that more effectively enable good engagement with businesses, communities, the public, governing bodies and other researchers to facilitate better engagement and greater impact. The TDI tool was developed as part of a JISC funded project which focused on identifying, synthesising and embedding business, community and public (BCE) engagement best practices. The TDI tool examined the best practices at the dot.rural Digital Economies hub at the University of Aberdeen and translated those (accompanied by new guidance) into the TDI tool. Parts of this document were sourced from 'Brief Notes on Social Media for Research' by Jennifer Holden (University of Aberdeen, October, 2012). This document describes the TDI tool and its use

Tracking digital impact (TDI) tool: key questions reference.

This is a quick reference summary of the 'Key Questions' developed as part of the large Tracking Digital Impact (TDI) Tool. Users with experience of digital technologies or have previously completed the TDI tool may find this a useful reference when re-assessing or completing new assessments

Written evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights (together with ORG, Article 19, Index on Censorship 2020) - Digital Contact Tracing Apps (NHSX)

We welcome the JCHR aim of providing certainty and comprehensive protection for individuals’ rights, in light of the upcoming deployment of the NHSX Contact Tracing system. Clarifying the available safeguards would allow the public to better understand the functioning of the NHSX application, the consequences for their rights, and the remedies at their disposal. Further, as emergency situations may require rapid and bold responses, and protections of rights enshrined in law should be strengthened accordingly: in turn, public scrutiny and enforcement of rights would be enabled to keep pace with such rapid developments. Likewise, we reject Matt Hancock’s communication to the JCHR that a Bill is unnecessary as sufficient safeguards are present in Data Protection legislation and other general policy commitments; they are not. Data protection regulations leave a scope for differing protections and approaches, as they are not tailored to the situation at hand. On the other hand, public confidence would benefit greatly from a more specific approach which ensures particularly high protections. Having said that, we are concerned about a number of issues raised in the current text of the draft Digital Contact Tracing (Data Protection) Bill. We have divided those concerns into three groups: Missed Opportunities: we believe the Bill overlooks certain risks, whose potential for undermining public trust is significantly high; Overlaps and Coordination with the GDPR: we find that some provisions enshrined in this Bill are at risk of overlapping, conflicting or not properly coordinating with the current data protection regime; Other Areas for Improvements: finally, we cover certain aspects of the Bill which could be improved upon, in order to better attain the purposes of this Bill. Each of these groups entails a number of issues, each (i) introducing the clause or clauses being discussed, (ii) briefly analysing the issues being raised, and (iii) recommending suitable changes to the Bill. With this, we hope to contribute to ensuring that the Joint Committee on Human Rights Bill can really provide citizens with choice, control and confidence over the Government use of their personal data. Please note that these concerns and considerations are not exhaustive. We would thus welcome the opportunity to discuss these concerns with the JCHR with a view to furthering and enhancing their work on technological responses to COVID-19

Social media in strategic management

This research explores the implications for risk management of “People Risk.” In particular how online digital behaviors, particularly from young people entering the workplace for the first time, might impact on the work setting and how risk management might mitigate impact on the employee and organization. A mixed methods approach was used to consider these implications and draws from a number of data sources in the United Kingdom including a database of self-review data around online safety policy and practice from over 2000 schools, a survey of over 1000 14–16 year olds and their attitudes toward sexting, and a survey of over 500 undergraduate students. In addition the work considers existing risk management approaches and the models therein and how they might be applied to people risk. The dataset analyzed in this exploration show an education system in the United Kingdom that is not adequately preparing young people with an awareness of the implications of digital behavior in their lives and the survey data shows distorted social norms that might have serious consequences in the workplace

Operational risk perspectives: Cyber, big Data, and emerging risks

Operational Risk Perspectives: Cyber, Big Data, and Emerging Risks covers key topics related to operational risk currently on the minds of practitioners. The book is comprised of chapters written by both industry professionals and academic experts who provide an overview of the current state of this discipline

Safeguarding Adults Online: Perspectives on Rights to Participation

This much-needed volume fills an overlooked gap in adult safeguarding - the digital arena - in providing a comprehensive overview of policy and practice in supporting vulnerable adults online. Providing an essential analysis illustrated by recent court rulings and case studies, the authors advocate for the effective support of adults with learning disabilities and/or mental capacity issues in their digital lives without compromising their privacy and participation rights. The text balances a theoretical exploration of the tensions between participation and protection, legislation, human rights, professional biases and social wrongs. It encourages a critical approach in adopting both a practical and realistic understanding for policy makers, professionals and students in social work, law and adult social care

'Implicit creation' : non-programmer conceptual models for authoring in interactive digital storytelling

Interactive Digital Storytelling (IDS) constitutes a research field that emerged from several areas of art, creation and computer science. It inquires technologies and possible artefacts that allow ‘highly-interactive’ experiences of digital worlds with compelling stories. However, the situation for story creators approaching ‘highly-interactive’ storytelling is complex. There is a gap between the available technology, which requires programming and prior knowledge in Artificial Intelligence, and established models of storytelling, which are too linear to have the potential to be highly interactive. This thesis reports on research that lays the ground for bridging this gap, leading to novel creation philosophies in future work. A design research process has been pursued, which centred on the suggestion of conceptual models, explaining a) process structures of interdisciplinary development, b) interactive story structures including the user of the interactive story system, and c) the positioning of human authors within semi-automated creative processes. By means of ‘implicit creation’, storytelling and modelling of simulated worlds are reconciled. The conceptual models are informed by exhaustive literature review in established neighbouring disciplines. These are a) creative principles in different storytelling domains, such as screenwriting, video game writing, role playing and improvisational theatre, b) narratological studies of story grammars and structures, and c) principles of designing interactive systems, in the areas of basic HCI design and models, discourse analysis in conversational systems, as well as game- and simulation design. In a case study of artefact building, the initial models have been put into practice, evaluated and extended. These artefacts are a) a conceived authoring tool (‘Scenejo’) for the creation of digital conversational stories, and b) the development of a serious game (‘The Killer Phrase Game’) as an application development. The study demonstrates how starting out from linear storytelling, iterative steps of ‘implicit creation’ can lead to more variability and interactivity in the designed interactive story. In the concrete case, the steps included abstraction of dialogues into conditional actions, and creating a dynamic world model of the conversation. This process and artefact can be used as a model illustrating non-programmer approaches to ‘implicit creation’ in a learning process. Research demonstrates that the field of Interactive Digital Storytelling still has to be further advanced until general creative principles can be fully established, which is a long-term endeavour, dependent upon environmental factors. It also requires further technological developments. The gap is not yet closed, but it can be better explained. The research results build groundwork for education of prospective authors. Concluding the thesis, IDS-specific creative principles have been proposed for evaluation in future work.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo