Dr Penny Duquenoy wins major research funding for ethics research

February 2008

Dr Penny Duquenoy, Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing Science, Middlesex University, has been awarded a major EPSRC research grant (value £264,411) for a three year project on research in ethics aimed at Protecting children in online social networks. Details of the project are given below. Dr Duquenoy is also the chair of IFIP-WG9.2 (Social Accountability of Computing) and the Manager of the British Computer Society Ethics Forum.

ISIS - Protecting children in online social networks
EPSRC Project No: EP/F035454/1
Value: £264,411

The aim of the Isis project is to develop an ethics-centred monitoring framework and tools for supporting law enforcement agencies in policing online social networks for the purpose of protecting children. The project will develop natural language analysis techniques to help identify paedophiles from chat logs and monitoring mechanisms that can be non-invasively attached to file sharing systems for identifying the distributors of child abuse media. The ethical issues associated with such monitoring activities will be rigorously studied and consistently fed back into the development of the framework and tools. The project results will be used and evaluated by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) centre as part of their own policing activities.

3 year project with partners from Lancaster University, Swansea University and CEOP. Combined award (£735,400)
Start date: 1st June 2008

February 2008