As Director of Education with MediaSmarts, Matthew leads the education program team in research, resource development and outreach.  A former teacher, Matthew is a nationally recognized expert on privacy, copyright and cyber security issues relating to youth.  MediaSmarts (formerly known as Media Awareness Network) is a Canadian not-for-profit centre for digital and media literacy.  Its vision is that young people have the critical thinking skills to engage with media as active and informed digital citizens.

Despite what many adults believe, privacy matters to youth.  More and more, though, youth are finding that their actions online are monitored – by parents, teachers, and corporations.  A high school principal creates a fake Facebook profile page and adds over 300 of her school’s students as friends; a Texas middle-school plans to introduce ID cards with microchips that its students will be required to carry at all times; an Indiana high school student is expelled after a profane tweet (sent in the middle of the night from the student’s home computer) alerts his school’s monitoring system.  While these are extreme examples, they show some of the ways that young people find their privacy compromised – often by the very same people who are urging them to be more conscious of their privacy.

As MediaSmarts’ study, Young Canadians in a Wired World, Phase III: Talking to Youth and Parents about Life Online, has shown, youth receive inconsistent messages about privacy.  On the one hand, youth are often told that they need to value and protect their privacy.  Parents and teachers tell students to be aware of the information they post online, whether on their social networking pages or when entering contests or filling out registration forms.  This personal information can be collected and sold to advertising companies and marketers for use in targeted advertising or corporate strategies, or can result in unwanted contact from strangers or lead to social embarrassment.  On the other hand, kids are told that their privacy needs to be compromised for their own protection: parents feel pressured to monitor their children because they’ve heard about the (exaggerated) dangers of Internet predators, while schools monitor online activity to attempt to prevent access to inappropriate content or because they’re worried about cyberbullying.

In addition to these confusing messages about privacy, surveillance online is simply a reality for youth today.  While youth feel that the surveillance they’re subject to is annoying (and often useless), they have received the same mistaken messages about stranger danger and Internet risks and as a result have bought into the idea that they must be monitored to keep them safe online.  This surveillance – and young people’s acquiescence to it – is cause for concern.  Privacy is a fundamental human right, and constant surveillance chips away at our private space.  If youth grow up in an environment where surveillance is normal, they are less likely to resist future – and possibly more intrusive – developments in surveillance.  If youth learn, early on, that having their activities tracked and their behaviours monitored by a multitude of sources is normal, then they might not resist as more and more parts of their life come under the gaze of others.  Moreover, this constant surveillance robs kids of the chance to take risks, to experiment and to make mistakes – to grow, in other words, into independent adults.

Surveillance can also drive kids underground: many youth report that they often subvert, resist, or negotiate surveillance in a variety of ways.  For instance, youth use slang, code words or “in-group” references to send one message to peers and another to parents, move to social networks that permit greater degrees of anonymity or pseudonymity, and seek out alternative service providers if they’re uncomfortable with the amount of information a website wants to collect – or, if they can’t find an alternative, limit or falsify the information they post.

Students aren’t the only ones who criticize school surveillance: many teachers do as well.  When school filters block sites such as YouTube or web pages that contain certain key words, it’s frustrating for students and teachers alike.  Of course, there are pressures on schools too.  Schools and teachers need to balance their responsibilities to keep students safe and to provide a space for growth and development, both academically and socially.  Too often, though, safety means surveillance.  Instead of blocking entire sites, students should have the opportunity to browse, learn, and develop in a supportive environment where they have access to the opportunities that the Internet can provide, but also feel comfortable turning to an adult if there’s a potentially dangerous situation.  Rather than shutting down the computer – and the conversation – mistakes of this kind should be teachable moments, as they were for the teacher in our study whose students stumbled on a “cloaked” hate site without recognizing it.

Despite the numerous strategies that youth have devised to get around surveillance and maintain their own privacy, there are still a number of areas where kids can benefit from adult guidance.  For example, while youth are very concerned about their social privacy, they’re often not nearly as aware of how the corporate online spaces where they spend their time gather and profit from their personal information, and the means available for protecting their privacy in that context.  It’s also easy for kids – especially teens – to forget how permanent something posted on the Internet can be.  Once it’s up, it’s out of our control: even if we delete that nasty comment or embarrassing photo, we can’t be sure that others haven’t already seen it, or even saved it and distributed it further.  Teaching kids about privacy ethics and digital citizenship can help develop an understanding of how to act ethically online and avoid embarrassing or harming themselves and others with their online actions.

It’s important that youth have the agency to control their personal information.  By providing them with access to their own personal space, instead of monitoring them online (even if it’s usually done with the best of intentions), we’re giving them the space to experiment and develop ideas and identities.  Youth then have the chance to grow, develop, learn how to be autonomous, and cultivate mutually trusting relationships with their parents, teachers, and peers.

MediaSmarts features an extensive privacy section on its website, highlighting developments in privacy issues and surveillance online, as well as some of the Canadian legislation that deals with these issues.  You can find the section at: http://mediasmarts.ca/privacy  Privacy information and further resources can be found on GRID, within the Family Online Safety section.

Alexandra Chernyavskaya is the Head of Department for illegal internet content prevention and response at the Internet Association of Kazakhstan.  She joined the team in 2012 to take over the division of the Association dedicated to online safety, particularly the safety of children.  Alexandra has a degree in Psychology, a particular interest in Criminal and Forensic Psychology and experience in project management and social media.  She combines her academic knowledge with Internet-related experience to tackle Internet crimes within the Kazakhstani segment of the Internet.

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Kazakhstan is a fast growing country and the usage of ICT grows ever more important.  Current penetration of the Internet in Kazakhstan is approximately 50%.  There are 49.5 Internet users per every 100 citizens of the country, whereas in 2008 there were only 15 users per every 100 citizens.  Such popularization led to an increase in the number of underage users.

Unfortunately, there are no official statistics for the exact number of young Internet users in Kazakhstan, but several popular local web sites provide numbers, which help to make an approximate estimation.  One of the most popular web sites within the Kazakhstani segment of the Internet has more than 5,400,000 unique visitors per month.  Users between the ages of 12 and 17 years amount to 7% of all users, including 5% of females and 2% of males.  It also has to be taken into account that Russian, European and American sites tend to be more popular among Kazakhstani users, so the underage audience of those sites may be well above 400,000 users.

The popularization of the Internet provides youngsters with a whole world of opportunities for communication, education, and leisure.  However, the Internet also provides the perfect environment for criminal activity directed at children and teenagers.  The Internet offers multiple opportunities: it is easily accessible to criminals and it lacks centralized and coordinated regulation.  In addition, it provides a level of anonymity that did not exist before.  As the popularity of the Internet among youngsters increases, the criminal activity directed at minors grows as well.  Although there is no solid evidence to suggest that these two phenomena are directly related, one can hardly deny the fact that sex offenders who target children actively use the Internet to find their victims.

According to data provided by the Committee of Legal Statistics and Special Accountancy of the General Prosecutor’s office of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the number of sex crimes against children under the age of 16 increased by 48% in 2011, and by a further 63% in 2012, reaching a total number of 232 cases.  In addition, 248 rape cases were registered in 2012. Knowing that official statistics generally under-represent the real state of things, it can be suspected that the actual numbers are higher.

Current legislation in the majority of countries is very clear about punishments for sex offenses against minors, but when it comes to similar offenses made online the legislation is not so unanimous.  A number of countries, including Australia, Canada, USA and Great Britain, introduced the concept of grooming into their legislation as well as punishment for it.  When it comes to such countries as the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan, legislation here does not stipulate for online offenses.  Due to this, online offenses remain unpunished.  The criminal can be apprehended only if they managed to take online grooming one step further and secure a meeting with a child in real life.  However, this usually turns out to be too late.

The Russian Federation has recently passed Federal Law 436,  “On the protection of children from information harmful to their health and development”.  Undeniably it limits the access of children to inappropriate information online, but it cannot protect them from sex offenses that originate on the Internet.  A similar draft law has been created in Kazakhstan as well.  It has been introduced to the Mazhilis (the lower house of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan) in the autumn of 2012.  Despite the importance of this law, it only covers the question of protection from inappropriate information and similarly to the Russian one does not cover the issue of online grooming and online sex offenses.

Recently, several measures for the protection of Internet users have been proposed within governmental bodies.  Last November, Deputy General Prosecutor Mr. Merkel proposed to add a chapter dedicated to cybercrime to the Criminal Code.  In accordance with this chapter, authors of the web sites containing information related to terrorism, pornography and suicide would be punished.  Mr. Merkel, however, mentioned that it would be difficult to apprehend the owners of illegal websites if they lived in a different country.  In addition, the General Prosecutor’s Offices recently proposed punishing those who provide hosting services for websites with illegal content.  However, despite these propositions no amendments to the legislation have been made so far.

When it comes to the responsibility of online community itself, measures for the protection of children are virtually absent within the Kazakhstani segment of the Internet. Namba.kz  and Nur.kz  are among the most popular Kazakhstani web sites that can be classified as social networks. Their terms and conditions clearly state that the administration of the website is not responsible for any content posted on the website and that they are not responsible for any possible moral harm or damage resulted from the usage of the website.  The terms of Nur.kz only mention that they have a right to delete illegal content.  None of the websites provide guidelines for those who encounter disturbing content.

As of today the underage online community in the territory of Kazakhstan remain unprotected, both while using local web resources and resources of other countries as well.  Whereas local legislation has boundaries, the Internet does not and online predators know this very well.  Currently the online safety of children lies within the hands of their parents or teachers who can closely monitor online activities.  However, there is a problem here as well.  The majority of parents and teachers simply do not have enough knowledge about the Internet because they were introduced to it a mere 10 – 15 years ago.  When it comes to the Internet they may be even less confident with it than their children.  As a result, the young generation of Kazakhstani citizens seems to be left alone on the Internet.

In order to amend the situation, a number of measures have to be adopted by governmental bodies, communities and individuals.  The speedy introduction of relevant legislation is one of the most important measures to be taken.  Cybercrime is often no different from the real life crime and it requires the same level of response.

In addition, it is vital to raise awareness among children, parents, teachers and the general community.  Once people learn to be vigilant while using the Internet, it will be much harder for criminals to catch them off-guard.  This can be done by means of seminars tailored for each group of users.  Through such specialized training, parents, guardians and teachers will be made aware of Internet dangers, they will be equipped with the necessary tools to protect their children and they will be taught to discuss the issues with them.

Community action has already become a powerful international tool for the prevention of cybercrime, especially against children.  Unfortunately, community participation and involvement remains relatively low in Kazakhstan.  In support of international community action, the illegal Internet content hotline was established in Kazakhstan two years ago.  Via the safekaznet.kz hotline users can report illegal content and thus contribute to its removal from the Kazakhstani segment of the Internet.  Currently the online protection of children is one of the foremost priorities of the hotline.

It has to be emphasized that there is a number of actions that can be taken to prevent cybercrime directed at children and adolescents, including control over the financial flows, the creation of specialized social networks for children only and the involvement of business and general community.  However, in such a young country as Kazakhstan we have to start from the very beginning and take the initials steps towards that direction first.  As soon as the foundation is built, we will be able to do much more.

Tia Fisher is the Marketing Manager for the social media management agency eModeration. With over 16 years’ experience in on and offline marketing gained in marketing agencies in Portugal and London, Tia is the voice of  many of eModeration’s social media channels including the blog and Twitter. Tia has an especial interest in child online safety and privacy issues.

This post was originally published on eModeration’s blog on March 3, 2013 and is reproduced in this form with permission.

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Although changes were very necessary, the recent FTC amendments to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) have sparked some confusion and raised concerns that they will diminish innovative and educational content production.

To quickly review: COPPA restricts the online collection of personal information from children under 13 years of age in advance of parent consent. It applies to US companies or to US citizens, but has global implications. It details what a website (or any online service) operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent or guardian and what responsibilities an operator has to protect children’s privacy and safety online. These include restrictions on marketing to children under 13.

The FTC initiated a review in 2010 to ensure that the COPPA Rule keeps up with evolving technology and changes in the way children use and access the Internet, including the increased use of mobile devices and social networking. After a lengthy consultation period the revisions were announced in December 2012. In January, FOSI released a brief outlining the changes the FTC has made to the Act, which comes into force on July 1 2013.

eModeration has taken a close look at the FOSI article, and consulted Denise Tayloe, CEO of PRIVO, the leading consultants on COPPA compliance, to help demystify a complex topic. Thanks to both FOSI and to Denise, for her invaluable help and direction.

Here is a summary of the changes and some analysis of what they mean to all online service operators.

PII has been extended to include: geolocation data, persistent identifiers (such as an IP address, or unique device identifier) photos, audio and videos, plus usernames and screen names when they operate the same as online contact information.

The promotion of “Just in Time” notifications makes sense and will assist parents in making informed decisions about what their kids are doing online. (For example, informing parents of what is being collected, exactly when the information is collected by the company). The notice must include:

• What information has already been collected and what additional COPPA triggering features will be enabled allowing for additional collection.
• Purpose of the notice.
• Actions the parents must take.
• Description of how the information will be used.
• A hyperlink to the website privacy notice.

However, this requirement could make it challenging for a company to offer blanket COPPA protections, which are opt-in, rather than opt-out post data share.

The retention of “email plus”ⁱ provides websites and apps with an easy, cost-effective way of obtaining verifiable parental consent for information collected and used solely for internal purposes (i.e. NOT shared with any third parties).

More methods of obtaining verifiable parental consent have been introduced.  In general, any method will be permitted if it meets the test of “any method to obtain verifiable parental consent must be reasonably calculated, in light of available technology, to ensure that the person providing consent is the child’s parent”.  These methods include:

• electronic scans of signed consent forms and video conferencing;
• collecting government issued identification and checking identification against a database of such information (provided such information is deleted after verification);
• monetary transaction on a credit card, debit card, or other online payment system that notifies or records each discrete transaction to the primary account holder.

Increased oversight of the safe harbor programⁱⁱ, along with allowing them to approve consent mechanisms not yet enumerated by the FTC. Online operators are encouraged to participate in an annual assessment and certification process with an approved safe harbor under COPPA.

Expansion of the “support for internal operations” definitionⁱⁱⁱ allows operators to collect the necessary information for the running of their services without going through expensive and time-consuming consent procedures.

Releasing children’s data to third parties: Operators must take reasonable steps to release children’s personal information only to service providers and third parties that are capable of maintaining the confidentiality, security and integrity of such information and provide assurances that they will do so.  This new requirement does not require operators to ensure compliance, but does require them to inquire about the entities’ data security capabilities and, either by contract or otherwise, receive assurances about how the information will be treated.

A strict liability standard on websites or services that incorporated a third party service, such as social networking plug-ins or advertising networks; stating that:

• the first party site was best placed to know the age of their users and to request the relevant consent from parents;
• the first party site derived significant benefit, financial or otherwise, from the third party service.

The plug-ins and advertising networks themselves are now subject to the COPPA Rule in their own right. Plug-ins where they have “actual knowledge” that they are collecting information from a child-directed property are subject to the same laws. What constitutes “actual knowledge” remains unclear.

As expected, app developers, small businesses and large companies have raised specific concerns:

• First party sites or services will be reluctant to incorporate third party plug-ins if they have liability for their compliance.
• They asked the FTC to consider situations where, despite agreements to the contrary, a third party service collects data from a child, and the first party will still be contravening the COPPA Rule and subject to enforcement actions.
• Regarding the cost and feasibility of compliance with some of the new terms; many believe the cost has been massively underestimated by the FTC and will result in many organizations ceasing to create any material for children, especially those aged under 13.
• There are also legal considerations and the question as to whether or not the revised Rule has exceeded the scope of the original Act (COPPA) and that the FTC is exceeding their statutory authority overall.

Hopefully, this will give you some insight in to the changes and the issues raised. We feel that clearer communication of the impact, and anything left open-ended (such as how to handle existing accounts and whether mobile push alerts are COPPA triggering) needs to be cleared up soon if companies are to begin compliance by July 1, 2013.  Many thanks once again to Denise Tayloe of PRIVO for her guidance and also to eModeration’s Child Safety Liaison Officer, Jennifer M Puckett, who co-authored this article.

Notes and further reading on the changes to COPPA:
For more information and background reading please see FOSI’s brief, COPPA FAQs, Privacy and Security Matters, Mondaq.com’s review of the changes, 7 Ways to be More COPPA Compliant (Inversoft) and our own blog posts on the subject:

• The changes to US COPPA legislation – do you have questions or comments? (September 4, 2012)
• FTC revisions to proposed changes to COPPA (August 8, 2012)
• COPPA – is it doing children online more harm than good? (November 4, 2011)
• The proposed changes to COPPA: Can they work? We think not. (October 21, 2011)
• COPPA attempting to update itself  (July 5, 2010)

Footnotes
ⁱThe “email plus” mechanism allows you to request (in the direct notice to the parent) that the parent provides consent in an email message. However, this mechanism requires that you take an additional step after receiving the parent’s email consent to confirm that it was, in fact, the parent who provided consent (the “plus” factor). These additional steps include:

• Requesting in your initial email seeking consent that the parent include a phone or fax number or mailing address in the reply email, so that you can follow up to confirm consent via telephone, fax, or postal mail; or
• After a reasonable time delay, sending another email to the parent to confirm consent. In this confirmatory email, you should include all the original information contained in the direct notice, inform the parent that he or she can revoke the consent, and inform the parent how to revoke the consent.

ⁱⁱSafe Harbor:  The Rule contains a “Safe Harbor” provision enabling industry groups or others to submit to the Commission for approval of self-regulatory guidelines that would implement the Rules’ protections. This program under COPPA, not to be confused with the EU Safe Harbor between the US Department of Commerce and the European Commission, provides for the same or greater protections for children as the COPPA Rule; the program must provide effective, mandatory mechanisms for assessing participants’ compliance with the requirements; and offer compliance incentives that provide for effective enforcement of the Rule.  Five groups have been approved as COPPA safe harbor programs so far:  PRIVO,  the Children’s Advertising Review Unit of the Better Business Bureaus (CARU), the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), TRUSTe and Aristotle International, Inc.

ⁱⁱⁱSupport for internal operations: Under the amendment, persistent identifiers do not need to be coupled with other personal information to be considered personal information. To balance this expansion, the FTC clarified that if an operator collects a persistent identifier for the sole purpose of providing support for its internal operations, then the operator is not required to provide notice or obtain prior parental consent for such collection and use. In addition, the FTC expanded “support for internal operations” to include frequency capping of advertising and legal or regulatory compliance.

On December 1, 2011, Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, launched the CEO Coalition to make the Internet a Better Place for kids.  After 14 months of meetings, discussions and internal review, the participating companies have reported back on their respective commitments.

Timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Safer Internet Day, the industry commitments were published on the DG Connect website on February 5, 2013 alongside a summary report of the progress made across the Commission’s five chosen work strands.

For an executive summary of the industry commitments and key issues, take a look at the latest in FOSI’s on-going series of policy briefings: http://www.fosi.org/emailers/fosibriefs-feb2013.html

As well as highlighting the significant progress made across the five working groups, the briefing points to the challenges that remain for industry under the continued oversight of DG Connect and in collaboration with one another via the CEO Coalition and ICT Principles Coalition, with meetings already scheduled for 2013.

Lasantha de Alwis is the Corporate Secretary and Head of Memberships for the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization.  He joined the organization in 2004, leaving Sri Lanka Telecom where he served as the acting chief administration officer and head of legal division.  Prior to Sri Lanka Telecom he worked in the banking sector for over 9 years.  His extensive achievements during previous employment fall in to several areas including management, business processes and IT.  Lasantha is an attorney-at-law, and holds an MBA.  He is also an associate member of the chartered institute of arbitrators and a CEDR-accredited mediator.  In his current role Lasantha has managed several programs to assist regulatory bodies across the Commonwealth and he leads on the Cybersecurity work of the CTO which aims to build the capacity of member countries to tackle growing threats in the Cyberspace.

Commonwealth, an organization of “freely and equally associated” members with democracy, freedom, peace, the rule of law and opportunity for all as its core values, encompassing 54 member states spread across the world, provides a strong platform to initiate action to address various facets of Cybersecurity.  As the premier ICT agency of the Commonwealth, that has been instrumental in driving the Commonwealth’s ICT agenda since its establishment in 1901, the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) has been involved in a number of activities and projects to promote safety, security and resilience of the Cyberspace.

Implementing Child Online Protection (COP) in partnership with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is a key project of this portfolio of activities.  COP has its genesis in the Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA) of the ITU, launched in 2007.  COP proposes to tackle child protection online holistically by developing national frameworks built on the same five pillars of GCA, legal measures, technical and procedural measures, organizational structures, capacity building and international cooperation, to be implemented through multi-stakeholder partnerships.  This model seeks to draw on the best available international expertise while ensuring local ownership and engagement.  A range of partners representing international organizations, civil society and private sector add to the strengths of COP by contributing expertise and resources for implementations.

For the first time, COP is being implemented in six African member countries of the CTO: Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana, Mauritius, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.  This project was launched in Mauritius on 24th October 2012, during the 52nd Council meeting of the CTO, with key decision makers of the beneficiary countries in attendance led by Hon. Tassarajen Pillay Chedumbrum, Minister of Information and Communication Technology of Mauritius.

The project plan calls for each beneficiary country to form a committee representing all the necessary and relevant stakeholders, who will contribute to the carrying out of an assessment of the current situation.  Based on the outcomes of the assessment, the ITU and CTO, together with COP partners, will develop draft national plans in consultation with the national stakeholders.

Encouragingly all the country assessments have been received and now the draft country plans are being developed by ITU and CTO together with the COP partners.  These draft plans will be finalized at the CTO’s Cybersecurity Forum 2013 due to be held in Yaoundé, Cameroon from April 22 – 26, 2013, where there will be six half-day workshops for each of the beneficiary countries.  Implementation of these plans will be monitored regularly by the ITU and CTO with the Cybersecurity Forum 2014 being a key check point.

While the project is due to bring practical value to the beneficiary countries, its effects are certain to be felt far beyond them.  The Cybersecurity Forum 2013, due to draw participants from across the Africa and the Commonwealth, will serve to raise awareness of COP as a concept along with its practical implications.  It will be an opportunity for other countries to learn about the project, find out how they could benefit and join up.  This project will act as a beacon for the Global ICT community to take practical steps to ensure the safety of the young people in Cyberspace, allowing them to realize the greater benefits it offers.

Sherif Issa is the Head of Health and Environment, at the Egyptian Company for Mobile Services, Mobinil, where he ensures regulatory compliance of mobile networks and manages several sustainable development projects.  His special interests and experience include how mobile applications can be used to improve the lives of people in the Third World, Internet safety and protecting children from harmful online content, as well as a range of environmental issues and ‘Green ICT’.

Digital citizenship is similar to offline citizenship in many countries: it has many benefits and responsibilities, but what makes it special is that it is easier to gain, keep and includes far more compatriots than any country on the planet – try 3 billion citizens!

The way I see it, digital citizenship has helped the peoples of developing countries more so than developed ones.  The Internet blessed us with the ability to communicate, speak freely and widely, share ideas, access enormous amounts of information and join communities that were for a long time limited to a select few.

As we are celebrating digital Africa this month, I would like to share my views as a digital African citizen.

Phenomenal growth in online participation.
The rate of Internet penetration, whether broadband or old fashioned dial-up connection has been exponential. Internet subscribers grew from 5 million in 2005 to 32 million currently.  In less than 3 years, 50 million Egyptians will be accessing the Internet.

Our culture really affects how we use the Internet.  
We’re not good readers but we love to socialize, talk and make jokes.  We have high illiteracy rates and therefore it is normal to find that the highest visited sites in Egypt are social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Masrawy, a local SNS and news site.

In a recent survey made by GSMA and the Japanese mobile service provider, NTT Docomo, on how Egyptians deal with social networking sites, there were 3 stages:

• Visiting – 58% of people interviewed said they only visited Facebook or Twitter or Yammer, whatever the choice was.  They wanted to test the waters and explore for themselves the world of social media but were afraid to go any further.  They were happy to just watch.
• Using – 47% said they used SNS.  These were becoming more interactive, pressing ‘likes’ and ‘re-tweeting’ things.  Their behavior was mostly reactive.
• Communicating – 13% were the ones who initiated discussions, established groups and may very well be responsible for starting Egypt’s revolution! The communicators are mostly young and highly skilled people: digital natives to whom the online world is second nature.

Challenges of online safety. How do parents feel about it?
Unfortunately, parents in Egypt are not so concerned about online safety, at least not until now. For any or all of these reasons, I say:

1. Parents are not fully aware of the dangers; and that’s where awareness is important. Most people don’t know about access restriction (filtering services).  Even those with high standards of living and education may have never heard that filtering services exist.
2. Prudent and careful use of the Internet is highly advised but not enforced in any way by official authorities. Guidelines for parents and community from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) are available but are not widely known.
3. Many parents are just happy to see their children handling technology so well. They forget, or deliberately neglect online safety.  They think it is a secondary or luxury point that can be worried about later.

I don’t agree with the second point at all. From what I see now, the threats that accompany online activities like cyber bullying, identity theft or spam are alive and well in our community and, for that lack of concern, they are growing steadily and dangerously.

Yahki. A 100% Egyptian social network site.
“Need is the mother of invention” and this new site proves it. Yahki (in Arabic it means ‘to tell’, usually a story) capitalizes on the successes of other SNS and wide appeal they have in Egypt.

Yahki’s idea is to gather posts addressing a certain topic and consolidating them in one location so readers don’t have to go back and forth searching the Internet.  Simple but effective and just tells us how much Egyptians are fond of social networks.

Alice Munyua has extensive experience in multi-stakeholder ICT policy development and has over the years been engaged in ICT policy processes and Internet governance at national, regional and international levels.  She is Kenya’s representative to ICANN and is one of the vice chairs.  She is currently leading several policy-related initiatives including reserve name policy for the African Union Commission (AUC) dot Africa project, Internet intermediary liability in Kenya and women and cyber crime among others.

Editor’s note: The theme of Safer Internet Day 2013 is Online Rights and Responsibilities and Internet users have been encouraged to ‘Connect with respect’.  Online behavior can be taken as an indicator of respect and Alice highlights an issue which is affecting the online experience and safety of women across Kenya: that of gender-based cyber-crime.

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The Internet continues to provide secure tools and spaces where women can enjoy their freedom of expression, information and privacy of communication, but the same benefits of anonymity and privacy also extend to those who employ it for committing violence against women.

Emerging online crimes threaten to take away the safe and secure spaces, denying women’s ability to use the Internet for their empowerment and development due to safety concerns.  It is estimated that 95% of aggressive behavior, harassment, abusive language and denigrating images in online spaces are aimed at women and come from partners or former male partners.¹  The report notes that many ICT tools such as spyware, wireless technology, and webcams are used to perpetrate violence against women.

According to a 2010 study conducted by the Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) Cyber crime against women is becoming a widespread and destructive problem including stalking, privacy violation, sexual harassment, digital manipulation of photographic images, fraudulent postings and advertisements, persistent abusive mobile messages, sex trafficking, humiliating comments that reinforce gender-constructed stereotypes, professional sabotage, identity theft, intimate photos and video used for blackmailing women in violent relationships among others.²

While both men and women are affected by cyber stalking, for example, victims aged between 18-32 were predominantly female.³  The report notes that women are affected differently and that cyber crime against women is a uniquely gendered phenomenon.  Most of the criminals invoke humiliating, gendered stereotypes making it clear that women are targeted due to their gender.  It has a profound impact on the women targeted, interfering with their full participation in online activities and impacting negatively on their personal and professional, lives, sometimes increasing vulnerability to possible offline harassment.  This can result in women getting discouraged from engaging in Internet-related activities including learning, social connections and economic activities.

While the Internet has created secure online spaces where women can feel safe from harassment and enjoy freedom of expression and privacy of communication, cyber crimes threaten these very communication rights that have been some of the most democratizing aspects of the Internet.  Cyber security/crime legislative and regulatory frameworks lack consideration of the social and gender impact of cyber crime.  Despite several legal and regulatory provisions, including the new constitution in Kenya, which provides for the right to respect and protection of human dignity; right not to be subjected to any form of violence, torture or treatment in a cruel, inhuman or degrading manner and the right to privacy, among other rights, none begin to specifically address online harassment against women.

The government has shown commitment in addressing gender-based violence as provided by various policies, strategies and legislation, however, these efforts have not translated into specific policies that address gender-based cyber crime.  And with the private sector often seeking to protect intellectual property matters or government enforcing control and surveillance on citizens, as in the case of the recently announced Network Early Warning System (NEWS)⁴, which is meant to monitor traffic on Kenyan ISP networks and respond to possible cyber threats, it is uncertain whether privacy issues and women’s rights stand to be protected.  With the lack of broader women’s movement engagement in this area or awareness of this issue, defining and articulating the issues at stake to move beyond national cyber security/cyber terrorism is quite challenging and raises concerns on whether the cyber laws/frameworks will be mobilized to restrict communications rights.

Women cannot avoid online spaces/environments unless they are willing to forgo the Internet’s economic, social, and political opportunities.  This is particularly true for individuals whose professional and social lives are inextricably linked to the Internet.  To avoid continued or future abuse, women sometimes assume gender-neutral pseudonyms, limit their online activities or go offline altogether.

This is therefore an opportune time to address and combat cyber crime against women as more Kenyans access the Internet and before online gender-related crimes become too ingrained.  If the current situation is allowed to continue unabated, there is a risk that it will exacerbate existing structures of gender inequality.

A key component of addressing cyber crime is education and empowerment.  Women users should be provided with clear information about their rights, directions on how to protect themselves against crimes and how to report incidents in case they occur.

Industry, technical community, civil society and law enforcement organizations should collaborate to provide awareness, solutions and conduct investigations.  In addition, the development of legal and regulatory provisions that recognizes the special needs of women can play a critical role in denoting cyber crime against women and in shaping online behavior, by changing the way online violence against women is perceived by law enforcement, perpetrators and the broader public.  Revision of existing cyber security frameworks to include gender-based online violence is essential, so is equipping law enforcement agencies and officers with skills and resources to address and investigate the complex nature of gender-based cyber crime.

Recognizing that online harassment is gender discrimination is important in placing the issue on the public and policy agenda to create awareness about the gendered harms it creates, to change online culture and deter perpetrators in order to create a safer Internet for all.

Sources:

¹ http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw/SGstudyvaw.htm (last accessed February 15, 2013)
² http://www.kictanet.or.ke/documents/Activities/Women-and-CyberCrime-in-KE/Women_and_Cybercrime_in_Kenya_Literature_Review_report_working_ver4.pdf  (last accessed February 15, 2013)
³ http://www.kictanet.or.ke/documents/Activities/Women-and-CyberCrime-in-KE/Women_and_Cybercrime_in_Kenya_Literature_Review_report_working_ver4.pdf (last accessed February 15, 2013)
⁴ http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Corporate-News/CCK-sparks-row-with-fresh-bid-to-spy-on-Internet-users-/-/539550/1370218/-/x6adjmz/-/index.html (last accessed February 15, 2013)

Jim Teicher is CEO of CyberSmart Education, a digital learning company founded in 2000.  CyberSmart Africa is a social enterprise dedicated to innovating and implementing highly scalable digital learning solutions for developing nations. Watch Jim’s 2012 TEDx Talk delivered at Columbia University Teachers College.

CyberSmart Africa is one of a number of organizations working in the region to provide innovative digital learning solutions.  Using the world’s first adapted interactive whiteboard operating with inexpensive solar power, CyberSmart Africa brings affordable digital learning to schools that were previously considered to be unreachable. CyberSmart Africa implements a practical, whole-class learning strategy delivered in the context of regular classroom instruction. We bring ongoing teacher professional development, up-to-date learning content and equipment together to form a new learning solution for developing nations.

Following a successful proof-of-concept implementation funded by USAID/Senegal during 2011-12, we are entering Phase 2 of our development and efficacy testing – with the emphasis to enable scalability and quick uptake throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and globally. We are now partnering with the Senegalese Ministry of Education and the Millennium Villages Project and the Millennium Cities Initiative, joint programs of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Millennium Promise.

The pressing need to reach more students
School attendance in Sub-Saharan Africa is dramatically increasing: the combined impact of a youth bubble – a burgeoning population of children, nearly half of whom are under 15 years old – and political mandates to achieve United Nations Millennium Development Goal #2: Universal Primary Education.

The current model for school technology integration – using school computer rooms and laptops – is both painfully inadequate and far too expensive to even begin to adequately meet the challenges of this youth explosion. Too few computers serve large numbers of students in the face of continuous power outages, and persistent technical and logistical challenges. Computer use occurs separate from classroom instruction and is limited to imparting basic technology skills that will be obsolete long before students enter the workforce. The eighty percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s schools that lack electricity and basic physical infrastructure are bypassed entirely – totally neglected by this existing model.

CyberSmart integrates equipment, learning content, and professional development
Equipment: CyberSmart Africa’s technology features use of a large, interactive, projected display – an adapted interactive whiteboard – powered by just one netbook computer.  Designed specifically to meet the unique needs of low resource environments, the adapted interactive whiteboard consumes very little power and can operate off a single, solar-charged portable battery. Moving easily between classrooms, over rocks and sand, one interactive whiteboard effectively engages the 40-60 students in a typical class – hundreds of students each day in a single school.

A teacher moves an interactive whiteboard between classrooms.

Content: The whole class benefits from learning content previously unavailable – imagine interactive encyclopedias and virtual science experiments – in schools with no library and no science equipment. We look forward to integrating cloud-based learning content, but we currently rely on pre-installed software, including teacher-created lessons. We cannot rely on the Internet-delivered learning content now because of both the prohibitive cost of the Internet service, and the slow, unreliable data transmission.

Teacher Professional Development:  Professional development enables teachers to facilitate active, learner-centered, technology-integrated lessons. Our teacher training is structured for scale, and includes train-the-trainer programs, extensive use of offline videos and offline interactive digital learning, SMS messaging, online learning, and the development of a mutually supportive professional development learning community at the school level.

Focusing on Scale and Economics
With less initial, recurring and ongoing technology-related costs, the  CyberSmart ’21st Century School-in-a-Box’ significantly cuts the costs associated with the current  technology integration model. Implementation is simplified because there is less equipment to be managed. Instead of most funds being spent on equipment, we emphasize ongoing teacher training – the single investment in education that is most closely associated with student success.

A Collaborative, Ongoing Learning Adventure
The impact of CyberSmart Africa is clearly observable in the classroom. Teachers lecture less and students participate more. The entire class benefits with up-to-date content enhancing reading, science and history classes. We are currently refining all parts of our learning solution with the anticipation of eventually including the integration of tablet PCs and smartphones.¹

Learning with an interactive whiteboard.

Different Pathways, Same Endpoint
Integrating digital learning into schools in Sub-Saharan Africa will not follow the same path as the economically developed world. Desktop computers and the wired Internet will be bypassed in favor of mobile devices and mobile broadband connectivity. Children’s introduction to the Internet will occur mostly at school, not at home. Still, regardless of such differences, the successful integration of ICT to support everyday teaching and learning will always require teacher training to include the successful modeling of  positive, effective and responsible technology use.

¹ While the future use of mobile phones in education is exciting, the use of mobile broadband in Sub-Saharan Africa is currently too expensive, and networks are too slow and unreliable for classroom application. The support of what will amount to millions of connected devices poses an overwhelming task.

Sherif Issa is the Head of Health and Environment, at the Egyptian Company for Mobile Services, Mobinil, where he ensures regulatory compliance of mobile networks and manages several sustainable development projects.  His special interests and experience include how mobile applications can be used to improve the lives of people in the Third World, Internet safety and protecting children from harmful online content, as well as a range of environmental issues and ‘Green ICT’.

I liked Orange Group’s description of our children being born under a digital star and that soon they’ll be masters of the web.  A problem, however, persists, which is children navigating uncharted, and dangerous areas in the cyber world.  The main challenge for parents and guardians is children don’t always trust us as their filter.  The generation gap makes our advice outdated, unrealistic or at best not ‘hip’. Children always listen to peers rather than us when it comes to mobile and Internet.

[Editors note: Take a look at the latest FOSI/Pew Research for more on the ‘Online Generation Gap’.]

A recent international survey by the GSM Association shows 60% of youth aged 17 and 18 turning to friends for advice.  Only 20% asked their parents, and none asked their teachers!  I have 2 teens in my home, 2 laptops, 1 desktop and recently had to bow to status symbol pressures and buy a tablet.  I knew I’d be in trouble if I didn’t come up with online controls – and fast!

First thing I realized is that ‘control’ and ‘friendly’ or ‘practical’ do not always go well together, in fact, they are opposites: there’s no such thing as friendly control.   Secondly, no matter how sophisticated the filtering software I buy, there’s always a way around it.  There are sites that show how to crack software, cheat games, bypass filters, fake IP addresses and everything else that’s plain wrong, albeit exciting.

The great ‘control’ solution I wanted was apparently not a technical, but a human, ‘get to know your children better, let’s be transparent’ solution.  A technical solution was necessary but far from complete.  I started by establishing basic, intuitive rules and watched them develop as we went along.  Rules were interactive, meaning that I too, had guidelines and targets:

Tablets, laptops and smart-phones don’t go to bed
Bedrooms are for sleeping or maybe reading a book – the old fashioned kind made of paper.

Bridge the digital gap
I always thought of the digital gap as the difference between rich and poor, therefore ‘bridging the gap’ was basically to raise someone’s level of ICT knowledge by providing training and equipment.  That’s not all, however, the ‘digital gap’ is also the difference between old and young: often people who are living in the same home but with different online activities and habits.

So, here I was, an addict of the New York Times, National Geographic and model train web logs, who had to open an account at Tumblr, follow Justin Timberlake and Miley Cyrus and chased my boy to get to know the games he admired so much and see why.  I agree:  they were infatuating. Now I can’t think of a day passing without playing 20 minutes of Angry Birds.

Limits on location and duration of use
Use devices in a common area.  This way, you can see what your children are doing.  Being in the open by itself deters users from going into ‘no-go’ land.  I think that 2 hours on weekdays and 3 – 4 hours on weekends is fair.  When I say “use”, I refer to all portable devices, including wireless game consoles.

Be a pal
Lack of awareness of our children’s digital habits is today’s version of neglect.  Assuming they’ll do the right thing by themselves is asking too much and plain naïve.  The Internet is a great place to learn and benefit but, like any technology, there is a dark and dangerous side.  Be a friend to your children, share experiences and stories, explain online dangers like anonymous friendship requests, chain messages, spamming and mails calling for help.

Your children may still think of you as a dinosaur, but one that’s fun to be with.

[Editor’s note: For more information on how to start a conversation with your kids about online safety, take a look at the parents section of A Platform for Good: http://www.aplatformforgood.org/parents]

What is unique about his most recent project is the introduction of tablet technology in place of the more conventional OLPC laptops.  The new tablets have proved far more intuitive for children to use, and initial findings suggest such they are gaining both literacy and ICT skills without the support of parents or teachers.  Although in its formative stages, you can find more information on the project through our OLPC page within GRID.  A video of the full keynote speech given by Nicholas Negroponte at FOSI’s Annual Conference is below, and further conference videos are available on FOSI’s YouTube channel.

Additionally, continuing the theme of the impact of technology in developing countries, Dave Miles took part in the subsequent panel session, ‘Handouts to Handhelds’, discussing the role of ICT in development alongside Isam Ghanim of ChildFund International, Larry Irving of the Mobile Alliance for Global Good, Sean McDonald of FrontlineSMS and Alfred Watkins of the Global Innovation Summit.

It is widely agreed that multi-stakeholder collaboration within and between countries is fundamental to ensure the benefits of ICT are shared by all.  This is particularly relevant given that this month countries from all over the world are convening at the WCIT in Dubai to discuss issues around Internet governance.

As an active participant in the ITU COP since its inception in 2008, FOSI will continue to participate and share this dialogue through GRID.