Seems that the Youth Justice Board has built a new system (Youth Justice Board Information System, YJBIS) that generates statistical information based on so called anonymous data in the UK. We get back to that old discussion, of “how anonymous is anonymous”? Not very if you strip identifying information but in certain circumstances the data does not lose it’s anonymity. Take a look at what has been posted on ARCH blog for example concerning the YJBIS.
Category: Children
One month today since Ivy joined us!
You know today is a pretty special day. It is exactly one month since my daughter Ivy checked-out and joined us, pappa and myself in this exciting world. Exciting because it feels today as though we have come over a challenging and most beautiful month and feel a real achievement. We are learning how Ivy likes things and Ivy is getting quite at home with the way we run things.
Other things linked to privacy have been interesting since Ivy’s birth.
1. I have during the pregnancy and afterwards needed to provide blood tests on many occasions and each time need to remember to ‘opt-out’ of them holding my blood in a blood bank somewhere. I am sure I forgot to do the opt-out once, and I need to check this. This was quite annoying.
2. In my book Virtual Shadows I said that all new-borns in Sweden provide a ‘blood-spot’ that is used in research for PKU. My experience now shows that this is the case although what I didn’t know before is that you can opt-out. This is what we did with Ivy.
3. Ivy got a personal ID number assigned which arosed a conflict of emotions both as a parent and privacy avocate. As a parent a sense of pride that my Ivy really existed as a Swedish citizen in the system, as a privacy avocate.. well no explanation needed there.
4. We bought a ‘child-alarm’ as we live in a big house and we could chose between audio or audio/video. I am dismayed that I chose the latter option. My need for Ivy’s safety in the case of Ivy seems to have overriden her need for privacy. Having said that the video stores nothing, and in practice I think it was a waste of money, we normally hear her crying before the video switches itself on anyhow triggered by the noise. I still think an audio version is a good choice. The video just gives a false sense of security.
5. Sweden has centralised their health records a little like what the U.K. has been trying to do against massive public resistance. I am in principle against this, but it does have its benefits so long as you trust the data holding authorities. The benefits became apparent when access to my medical records were needed urgently when I became very ill (that led to an early arrival for my daughter :-)). Again I am faced with the conflict of my safety vs. the right for privacy, and the need to trust those holding my private information. I have no choice but to trust the Swedish authorities, but I am not sure I would trust the British authorities centralisation efforts. Here we are looking at consolidation of 64m (living) health records not just 9 million as in Sweden. Even if you did trust the British authorities to have the right intentions, in practice if the business processes are not working today, how can technologies applied to flawed business processes be expected to protect the confidentality and integrity of your personal data?
Database State report
Excellent report by well-known subject matter experts in this field, including: Terri Dowty, Ian Brown and Ross Andersen. The report is commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd.
PROTECTING THE VIRTUAL CHILD: The Law and Children’s Consent to Sharing Personal Data
Interesting report from Terri Dowty, Director of ARCH and Professor Douwe Korff on behalf of ARCH/Nuffield Foundation in January 2009. The purpose of this report is to give an indication of current legal thinking on children’s ability to give informed consent to information sharing, both in the UK and in other EU countries. It is divided into two sections: the first of these deals with the law in the UK; the second is a comparative study of seven EU countries.
sexting is all the rage
It seems we now have a new word for the practice of taking nude or semi-nude pictures of oneself and sending via MMS with the mobile phone. A growing practice amongst youngsters and occasionally with tragic consequences. Read more..
Independent schools join the privacy debate on ContactPoint
Excellent news! Independent schoos in the U.K. are encouraging all member schools to educate parents on what ContactPoint is about, and how to request that their child’s information can be “shielded”.
‘The Independent Schools Council (ISC), which represents 1,280 fee- paying schools, has written to its members describing the new database, ContactPoint, as an “unjustified interference in the privacy of the majority of children and their carers”. ‘
Britain’s surveillance culture
The Information Commissioner in the U.K. Richard Thomas warns of ‘surveillence culture’ in Times online. Well what’s new… although he also brings into the discussion the ContactPoint database. This is the U.K. database containing details on every child in the country. Action on Rights for Children talk alot about this.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH-1IumXZbI&hl=en&fs=1]
Cyberbullying
I received an interesting comment from Neil (who I happen to know is a school teacher) on the problem of cyberbullying that is a significant problem. Cyberbullying is the virtual form of bullying and mobbing and normally includes sending or posting of harmful or cruel text or images using the internet or other digital communication devicess. Incidences of cyberbullying can occur in chatrooms, via IM or SMS/MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), and Neil says that his experience is that it is happening on Facebook too. Cyberbullying is more intrusive than physical bullying because it is invasive, it follows the child everywhere and there is no escape.
There are some websites that provide good advice on how to deal with cyberbullying and one I can recommend is the DirectGov website on cyberbullying.
Walled gardens for minors
“The European Commission has announced that 17 of the leading web firms, including Facebook, Youtube and Myspace, have all signed the code which aims to reduce incidences of cyber bullying and grooming, and to ensure the protection of personal data. The firms will provide easily accessible ‘report abuse’ buttons and tighten up the privacy settings to prevent younger users’ details appearing on search engines.”
This is a self-regulatory approach. I wonder how it will work in practice?
Then there is something going on in the U.S. “In January, MySpace announced that it had entered an agreement with 49 state attorneys general regarding the protection of the data of minors who are using its services. The deal is supposed to complement the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which protects the data of children under the age of 13, by creating standards for the protection of data for teenagers between the age of 14 and 17. ” One of the changes includes “MySpace will create a closed section called “high school” for all users who are under the age of 18.
World Maths Day 2009
World Maths Day is an opportinity for students around the world to play against each other in mental arithmetic games. Direct feedback that I had from the head of IT at a school in Austria (thanks Neil) was that “the level of engagement in learning that students had in competing with students around the world in simple arithmetic tasks was stunning!”
Students are captivated by the fact that they are playing in real time. Each game lasts for 60 seconds, students can play as many games as they wish. The questions are appropriately leveled for different ages and abilities. Also open to school aged private individuals and homeschoolers.
So if you’re a school teacher, check it out. Your students can have some fun, learn at the same time, and do a bit of healthy online maths competition with other students from other schools around the world!