“There is no such thing as the Digital Age of Consent.” My post on part of the ‘Growing up in the Online World: a national consultation’, interpreting the proposals, and ‘emergency style’ DfE govt powers. jenpersson.com/there-is-no-... #onlineSafety #AV #DigitalID #SocialMediaBan #AgeVerification

At our Annual Conference, Antonio Weiss will join a panel discussion exploring AI & Public Services—including how to balance operational efficiency with the imperative of public trust & social values. 📅 Thursday 26 March 2026 🕛 12:00—13:15 📍Cambridge & online 🎟️ www.bennettschool.cam.ac.uk/conference

Congratulations to @jenitennison.com on her appointment as Chair, and @antonioweiss.bsky.social on becoming a member of the Responsible AI Advisory Panel, established by the Government Digital Service (GDS). Hear them speaking at two of our forthcoming events ⬇️

I had the pleasure of being a witness at the Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence of the @oireachtasnews.bsky.social this morning, to talk about AI, truth and democracy: www.oireachtas.ie/en/press-cen...

Governments should halt plans to roll out age checks on online services until privacy and security concerns are addressed, hundreds of academics said today. The warning comes as countries around the world move to bar children from social media.

Hacktivists tried to find a workaround to Discord’s age-verification software, Persona. Instead, they found its frontend exposed to the open internet, and that was just the beginning. www.therage.co/persona-age-...

Booking is now open for the Bennett School of Public Policy Annual Conference Speakers inc. Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, & keynote João Vale de Almeida, former senior EU Ambassador  🗓️26 March 2026 🕙10:00-18:30 📍Churchill College, Cambridge & Online 🎟️ bennettschool.cam.ac.uk/conference

Missed last Thursday’s LSE lecture? #EdTech at the Crossroads: #Pedagogy vs. Profit" is now available. Our panel tackled the digital shift in #schools and how commercial models impact children’s privacy. 📺 Watch: youtube.com/watch?v=HNG7... 🎧 Listen: www.lse.ac.uk/lse-player/e...

👨‍🏫 EdTech is transforming education. Join us next Thursday 6.30pm as Sandra El Gemayel, #BaronessKidron, Julian Sefton-Green & Rhys Spence discuss what a #childrights-respecting, pedagogically-sound vision for #EdTech looks like. See more 👇 www.lse.ac.uk/events/edtech @sonialivingstone.bsky.social

Denmark. The Data Inspectorate expresses serious criticism and warns municipalities about their use of Google's products in primary schools, including the use of sub-data processors outside the EU. www.datatilsynet.dk/presse-og-ny...? FYI @jenpersson.com @risu.bsky.social

"This is the final stage of corporatization: public education transformed into a delivery system for private capital." www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-destroying-the-university-and-learning-itself

I keep saying that when the first deep fake is made of a child and the image comes from a school site,,, we might see change

@jenpersson.com @defenddigitalme.bsky.social

Part 1: The Trouble with the (UK) #DataBill and Children’s Data A growing expectation to treat children’s data differently from adults’ brings with it new challenges in #DataProtection law. Among other things. jenpersson.com/the-trouble-...

Looking forward to contributing and participating in this tomorrow, #CILIPData25 in a talk on "Children as (copy)rights holders: canaries in the coalmine?" and panel with really interesting questions to challenge us in the afternoon.

This weekend, we've a little Easter egg for dystopian fiction fans. Or is it? "You are a Year 10 pupil at Horizon Academy. You didn’t sign up for the new system. No one asked for your permission. But your school bought it anyway. What do you do?" Choose wisely in our Twine. #HappyEaster2025 1/8🧵

Really excited about our #ChildrensRights Group annual lecture on 13/03 w/ @sonialivingstone.bsky.social on #childrights & the #digitalenvironment - with brilliant panelists @jenpersson.com, Data, Tech & Black Communities' Tracey Gyateng, CRiN's Leo Ratledge & our own Kay Firth-Butterfield. Join us!

School pupils’ ‘sex survey’ data offered to researchers: Opt out fails children on reuse of #ID and Local Authorities’ survey defenddigitalme.org/2025/02/05/s... #Scotland #Health #Wellbeing #DataBill #DUABill #CWBSBill #DataProtection #privacy #AI #Copyright Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill

BBC News - Scottish school pupil 'sex survey' data offered to researchers - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

My team has got news! Looking forward to working on this with great team members and collaborators across the UK ⬇️ www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...

Ignoring the role of time in Data Governance. A blogpost on why we must ensure any public policy or #AI creating inferences of meaning are built only on data that are correct, used within the context in which the meaning intended at source is valid over time. jenpersson.com/ignoring-the... #DUABill

Can't stop won't stop (making yip yip hanging baskets)

"AI providers may struggle to demonstrate their compliance" is about as strong as it gets.

I have a new report out w. @cendemtech.bsky.social looking at the latest in automated content moderation for the live-streaming context. Live video is hard to analyze, and - importantly - can’t be hashed and matched to existing infrastructures eg for CSAM detection. How are companies responding?

As mentioned by @jenpersson.com at today's "Scrambling for Safety" event. 👍 We can't go on letting "safety tech" advocates lobby on the basis of *one* of a child's rights to the exclusion of the rest of their rights.

If you are not yet signed up to the UK StopWatch newsletter you should be — this one is a cracker just ahead of Christmas, with a sweep of the state of the nation and what’s new in policing, including tech stories like the #AI powered Omnie Box— “affectionately known as the ‘Bobby Bot’”. 🙄

2023: A new report, co-published by CRIN and defenddigitalme, aims to capture the full complexity of how encryption affects children’s lives. It sets out principles for an approach to encryption that recognises and respects the full range of their rights home.crin.org/readlistenwa...

Tonight—includes me on why the Home Office has tried to match over 7.2K school pupils’ records from the Dept for Education, which has handed over 1.8K since we discovered govt using education records to further the Hostile Environment, the role of @ICOnews and what to do about it. Sign up 👇

Foundation for Information Policy Research event 'Scrambling for Safety' on Nov 28th Panels with excellent speakers on chat control, online safety, and government decision-making & AI (this panel chaired by me) Friends House London or online - sign up here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/scrambling...

Next webinar from Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment is on Monday, 5.30pm GMT. On education & the hostile environment, ft. a stellar line up: the National Education Union, Digital Defend Me, Louise Ryan, María López & Alessia Dalceggio. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ssahe-nove...

Join next Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment webinar on Monday, 25 November 2024, 17:30-19:00 No child is illegal! Education and the hostile environment with Louise Ryan, María López and Alessia Dalceggio, @jenpersson.com, Deborah Gwynn. ssahe.net/2024/11/20/n...

Peers call for a #DataProtection Code of Practice to apply in Education Settings Defend Digital Me notes and quotes from Second Reading debate last night on the Data Use and Access Bill #DUABill in the context of #education defenddigitalme.org/2024/11/20/p... #privacy #ChildRights #DataProtection

I’m in the House of Lords now, with @theabb.bsky.social setting the context and introducing tonight’s speakers who will discuss Ai and school social media use; parental views of use of EdTech & implications of children’s rights

Data Use and Access Bill: the Defend Digital Me view, briefing, and call to action defenddigitalme.org/2024/11/17/d... #MyRecordsMyRights #DataBill #DUABill Tonight from 17:30: Event at the Houses of Parliament C’ttee Room 3 #Data #Education Settings and #AI www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/childrens-...

Nov. 18th 2024, 5.30-7pm Children's Data: Use and Access in Educational Settings and #AI incl. 3 *new* research areas Committee Room 4, Houses of Parliament On the eve of the 2nd Reading of new UK #DUABill #DataBill #HOL Registration open, an in-person event www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/childrens-...

Oh. That's just delightful. "Jen Persson, director of Defend Digital Me, said pupil data should be used “for the purposes of their education and that alone”, not for the DWP to “hunt people down”. She said that more than 15 million people on the database today “have already left school”.

This week's net.wars, "Intents and purposes", is appalled by the news that the DWP is gaining access to children's educational rights in order to hunt for benefit fraud (h/t Jen Persson @ DefendDigitalMe): netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2024/05/10/i...

"Secret deal to let benefit fraud squad snoop on pupil data" schoolsweek.co.uk/revealed-sec... Pupil data should be used “for the purposes of their education and that alone”, not for the DWP to “hunt people down” Jen Persson, director of Defend Digital Me