Eagle-eye on Identities in the digital world

The concept of Identity, its representation and the definition of its attributes see essential changes in its translation into the digital world. The elements involved in the process of identification and authentication, attributes and identifiers, are created into a virtual world where physicality vanish and elements of trust evolve, challenging the digital citizens. How the digital world influences the construction of our Identity, of our Trust is essential question to be considered. This report provides an eagle-eye view on the concept and implications of Digital Identities. After an introduction situating the concept of Identity, the report clarifies its contemporary meaning and proposes a definition of reference. In a second time, the authors examine the consequences of the translation of the concept of Identity into the digital, internet-connected world. They analyse then the particularities and consequences of this translation which allow them to situate and define the concept of Digital Identities. Finally, they conclude by the challenges that Digital Identity poses to the digital citizen in the attempt to manage and protect its attributes with the advent of Internet of Things and Blockchain technology. An account by Henning Eichinger of the artistic process of the Skypelab project, searching the evolution on Portraits and Identity in the Digital world since 2012 prefaces this report and provides a complementary perspective on the subject.JRC.E.3-Cyber and Digital Citizens' Securit

Young children and the use of digital technology across Europe

Children are often more digitally skilled than parents realise and learn both from observing other family members and from developing their own strategies. Yet parental attitudes still deeply influence children’s levels of digital literacy and parents tend to have a more positive view of digital technology if schools meaningfully integrate such technologies into children’s learning. These are some of the findings from a major Europe-wide European Commission study of children’s media practices presented here, during Global Media and Information Literacy Week 2018, by Stéphane Chaudron and Rosanna Di Gioia. Stéphane researches young digital citizens’ security and safety at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC) and Rosanna is a researcher in the JRC Cyber and Digital Citizens’ Security Unit. [Header image credit: M. Stewart, CC BY-SA 2.0.jpg

Young Children (0-8) and Digital Technology - A qualitative study across Europe

It only takes witnessing a few interactions within modern western families to realize how much the experience of childhood has changed. The change comes from different winds blowing on today’s families’ time but certainly, the use of digital technologies peaks out and its impacts on childhood, education, learning and safety has been at question over the last years. Since a very early age, video watching and gaming on a variety of internet-connected devices are among children's favourite activities. Parents see digital technologies as positive and unavoidable, if not necessary, but at the same time, find managing their use challenging. They perceive digital technologies as something that needs to be carefully regulated and controlled. They would appreciate advice on fostering children’s online skills and safety. The document reports on results of a cross-national analysis building on data coming from 234 family interviews with both children and parents, carried out from September 2014 until April 2017 in 21 countries. It exposes the key findings regarding first children’s usage, perceptions of the digital technologies and their digital skills in the home context but also on parents’ perceptions, attitudes, and strategies. Beside the cross-national analysis, a dedicated section provides contextualized snapshots of the study results at national level. It then takes a close up on 38 families in seven countries in which researchers came for a second interview distant of one year in which they focused on monitoring change of context, children and parents’ perceptions, attitudes, and strategies over time. Conclusion reflect on the potential benefits, risks and consequences associated with their (online) interactions with digital technologies and provide recommendations to policymakers, industry, parents and carers.JRC.E.3-Cyber and Digital Citizens' Securit

Cyber safety game and tools made of citizen’s engagement

Happy Onlife is a game and a toolkit targeting teens to develop digital safety and security skills and knowledge. The Happy Onlife toolkit has been made of citizens’ engagement in its entire life-cycle. In the frame of the Citizens Engagement Festival held on 23-24 October, 2018 at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) at the Ispra site. JRC E3 was asked to produce a 3-minute video of the Happy Onlife selected project of engagement. This video shows three main phases of citizens’ engagement that can be summarised as follows: (1) Phase 1 – Concept & Development of the Happy Onlife tools; (2) Phase 2 – The Happy Onlife toolkit as paper-box, digital game as App and Web version; (3) Phase 3 Adoption citizens and future valorization. To document the citizens’ engagement in the entire life-cycle of the project, each phase is firstly introduced by a brief description and then illustrated by pictures linked to word-tags. The aim of this video creation was to showcase how citizen engagement can change knowledge production and development of tools within the policy cycle as alternative to the traditional methods.JRC.E.3-Cyber and Digital Citizens' Securit

How parents of young children manage digital devices at home: the role of income, education and parental style

The main focus of this report is on the role of parental education and household income. Together, these factors capture a major source of difference and inequality across households: hence we ask, how do they shape parental mediation of digital media? For policy-makers and practitioners, it is important to learn whether a generic approach to parental advice and awareness-raising is sufficient, or whether tailored guidance would be more effective for the different target groups of parents being addressed

Parental concerns regarding young children and digital technology. An exploratory qualitative investigation in three European countries

One of the effects of the development and widespread diffusion of digital technologies is that in contemporary homes children are being exposed to those technologies since birth. The present study aims to identify the general 'climate of concern' and to map specific worries that parents have with respect to their young children's digital lives. The study was theoretically framed by the intersection of parental mediation theory with media panics theory, and relied on data collected in three European countries (Portugal, Romania and Slovenia) as part of JRC project Young Children (0-8) and digital technologies. The data were collected in 2015, through family visits, this paper focusing on semi structured interviews that took place with parents. The results show that parents of children under 8 years old are concerned about health-related issues, screen addiction, exposure to age-inappropriate content, social exclusion by absence or under use of digital media, concerns of losing opportunities for essential (non-digital) childhood experiences, bad school performance and learning the "right" skills for the future. If some of these concerns echo public discourse on the risks of technology, parents in our study trimmed these fears and adjusted them to their current situation and their parental mediation practices.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Family dynamics in digital homes: the role played by parental mediation in young children’s digital practices around 14 European countries

In contemporary society, digital media are fully integrated in our daily lives, indispensable for our routines, always connected and at-hand. Our research thus explores the parental mediation of portable digital devices in families with young children, addressing the following questions: (a) which are the most common parental mediation styles adopted towards young children; and (b) which individual features of the parents or contextual factors influence the parental mediation style adopted. Our methodology is exploratory and qualitative, considering as empirical corpus 14 national reports from the European-scale study “Young Children (0–8) and Digital Technologies” for a comparative thematic analysis. The authoritative style was the most common parental mediation style related to technology use. In general, there are transversal rules to all parental mediation styles (except laissez-faire style), such as withdraw or give devices to children according to their behavior, control (inappropriate) content and control the time of use. Also, parental perceptions and attitudes about the technologies played a heavier weight on the parental mediation style adopted, and consequently influenced the relationship of the children with digital media. Some implications for future studies, preventive actions, and family therapy are discussed.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Privacy safeguards and online anonymity

In a world that is increasingly more connected, digital citizens, actively or passively accept to transmit information, part of which are “personal data”. This information is often collected and elaborated by third parties to infer further knowledge about users. The act of gathering the data is commonly called “tracking” and can be performed through several means. The act of analysing and processing those data and relate them to the individual is called “profiling”. The aim of this JRC Technical report is to be an instrument of support for the Digital Citizens to help them to protect and to manage their privacy during online activities. After a brief introduction in Chapter 1, the following chapter is dedicated to the description of two legitimate use-cases to track and profile users on-line, namely target advertising and personalisation of the user experience. Chapter 3 and 4 identify and analyse the set of techniques currently used by online digital providers to track citizens and profile them based on their online behaviour. Chapter 5 deals with some of the available tools cited in chapter 6 that could be helpful to protect the privacy while browsing online. Chapter 6 aims to raise awareness among users and provide some guidelines to address specific issues related to privacy through a multidisciplinary approach. The report concludes highlighting the importance of raising awareness among digital users and empower them through education, technical and legal tools, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to overcome possible privacy issues.JRC.E.3-Cyber and Digital Citizens' Securit

Designing connected play: Perspectives from combining industry and academic know-how. In: Chaudron S., Di Gioia R., Gemo M., Holloway D., Marsh J., Mascheroni G., Peter J., Yamada-Rice D. Kaleidoscope on the Internet of Toys - Safety, security, privacy and societal insights, EUR 28397 EN, doi:10.2788/05383

Academics, designers and producers tend to consider the evolving Internet of Toys (IoToys) from within their individual disciplines. On the one hand, academics bring a long history of researching and theorizing play and communication practices to the task of considering young children’s use of connected toys. On the other hand, designers and producers of connected toys have detailed understanding of the possibilities and affordances of technology, as well as the technical mechanics involved in toy production. In other words, they know what it is possible to make, and what it is not possible to make. Industry also has an eye on trends in digital toy production and content, and how these are likely to evolve. This is because the digital play industry track data on technology usage and media consumption, and so on. These are things that academics are often a step behind in understanding because of a tendency to consider children’s use of an end product. However, my work across academia and the commercial toy and digital content industry has taught me that the amount of expertise companies have of child development and theories around play and communication practices is extremely varied and start-up companies in particular have little resource to conduct in-house research. This means that some connected toys are not as well made for young users as they could be. However, these crossovers have also taught me that sometimes academics call for changes to designs that are not easily possible or commercially viable. Therefore, regular collaboration between academia and industry would aid production of the best possible connected toys and content for young children