Cyber safety research may miss the mark

The good people over at Australian eDemocracy alerted me to the recent report that the Federal Government will spend some of the $125.8 million cyber safety plan funding to engage an Edith Cowan University research team to "review current research on matters such as the nature and prevalence of cyber-safety issues, such as cyber-bullying, online predators and the disclosure of personal information."

They will also will also "explore views on the consequences of these risks, and what technical and behavioural measures can be used by children, parents and teachers to help reduce them."

All well and good, and I'm very supportive of the Government for undertaking this important action, however I have my reservations about the nature of the final report and the person heading it up, Professor Donna Cross.

On the Bullying. No Way! website, Prof. Cross is quoted thus:

“...much good work has been done by researchers to assess the prevalence of the bullying problem but virtually no research has been conducted to investigate empirically what can be done to address this problem.”

It seems she has found a way to get this important research funded by convincing the government that it is a cyber safety issue.

I disagree!

Bullying is a behavioural awareness and disciplinary issue that everyone can combat by working with perpetrators and victims, or potential victims, alike. It is a distinctly separate issue to cyber safety, which is a parental care and child educational issue requiring purely preventative measures and can not be combatted by working to rehabilitate perpetrators.

I fear that Prof Cross and her team at the Child Health Promotion Research Centre will lack the technological understanding and experience to complete this task in full. The question arises as to how this research grant was awarded to Professor Cross rather than any of the other tenders? If she was the best qualified for this work, then it is possibly a sad indictment on Australian commerce and academia.

Notably there is $2.3 million set aside for this research as well as a second project to develop a "repeatable survey instrument and methodology for data collection on the changes in behaviour of children, parents, teachers".

At the crux of the issue of cyber-safety is that parents, guradians and adults charged with relevant authority MUST take full responsibility in educating and supervising children's activity on any and every electronic media. The Bullying. No Way website (supported by Prof Cross' team at CHPRC) even tells us why:

“Many young people say that they wouldn’t report cyber bullying because most adults don’t know that they have a cyber life ... But parents have a moral, as well as a legal, responsibility to ensure that their children engage in safe and responsible behaviour – including online behaviour.”

Precisley the point that Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, and his team just don't seem to get, which is why they are insisting on imposing Internet Censorship via a secret filter on all ISP activity to ban black-listed sites.

Where is the control if parents don't know what their children are doing, who they are conversing with or what information they are unwittingly revealing about themselves, their location and their activities?

We wouldn't let our children walk the streets alone at night, yet there are many who allow their children to do just that in a cyber world. The risks and dangers are the same. The responsibility remains the same. Allowing a child to roam the streets alone is neglectful and it is a crime; so it should also be with cyber-media access. So it is, and so it shall remain. No cyber safety policy or Internet filter will change that.