AGENCY: Assuring Citizen Agency in a World with Complex Online Harms
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Birmingham
Department Name: School of Computer Science
Abstract
The online world is a curious but uncertain world. It enriches many facets of life but at the same time exposes citizens to a variety of threats that may cause harm to them, their loved ones and to wider society. Many of these harms result from a complex interaction of societal processes driven by diverse stakeholders-we call these Complex Harms.
Consider for example smart homes, with devices that manage energy usage, CCTV cameras for the garage and increasingly integrated IT components throughout the house. With such technology, the dynamics in families may change, for instance offering monitoring capabilities. This may results in harms that may include domestic violence, loss of privacy and gathering of disproprotionately large sets of population data by large industries.
This raises a number of questions: What is the role of the individual, friends and family to mitigate potential harms? How can one work with the device provider to minimize harm? Should the law interfere? The AGENCY project will use a number of case studies to answer these questions: HealthTech, Identity Management, Smart Homes and Online Disinformation.
Complex harms such as above tend to happen to citizens, and, in most cases, they are not purposely caused or easily controlled by citizens. The AGENCY project believes firmly that establishing citizen agency is an absolutely necessary ingredient for any transformative approaches that resolve these complex harms. Citizens need to be empowered through agency-enhanching technologies, behaviours and processes to gain a sense of control, ownership, security, and consequently trust in their online activities.
Protecting against complex harms is a wicked problem because so many stakeholder are involved, and because many harms are unintended consequences of the practical use and evolution of technology. Therefore, mitigating complex harms requires interdisciplinary co-design principles, technology foundations and collaborative governance procedures to assure online citizen agency in the presence of multiple stakeholder interests. The project brings together computer science, user-centered design, business, psychology, sociology, legal and ethical experts.
If AGENCY succeeds, it will provide a profound understanding of the role of online agency in protecting citizens and will deliver collaborative methods, technological building blocks and scientifically grounded best practices for our society to provide more proactive and structured approaches to protecting citizens online.
Consider for example smart homes, with devices that manage energy usage, CCTV cameras for the garage and increasingly integrated IT components throughout the house. With such technology, the dynamics in families may change, for instance offering monitoring capabilities. This may results in harms that may include domestic violence, loss of privacy and gathering of disproprotionately large sets of population data by large industries.
This raises a number of questions: What is the role of the individual, friends and family to mitigate potential harms? How can one work with the device provider to minimize harm? Should the law interfere? The AGENCY project will use a number of case studies to answer these questions: HealthTech, Identity Management, Smart Homes and Online Disinformation.
Complex harms such as above tend to happen to citizens, and, in most cases, they are not purposely caused or easily controlled by citizens. The AGENCY project believes firmly that establishing citizen agency is an absolutely necessary ingredient for any transformative approaches that resolve these complex harms. Citizens need to be empowered through agency-enhanching technologies, behaviours and processes to gain a sense of control, ownership, security, and consequently trust in their online activities.
Protecting against complex harms is a wicked problem because so many stakeholder are involved, and because many harms are unintended consequences of the practical use and evolution of technology. Therefore, mitigating complex harms requires interdisciplinary co-design principles, technology foundations and collaborative governance procedures to assure online citizen agency in the presence of multiple stakeholder interests. The project brings together computer science, user-centered design, business, psychology, sociology, legal and ethical experts.
If AGENCY succeeds, it will provide a profound understanding of the role of online agency in protecting citizens and will deliver collaborative methods, technological building blocks and scientifically grounded best practices for our society to provide more proactive and structured approaches to protecting citizens online.
Organisations
- University of Birmingham (Lead Research Organisation)
- SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics GmbH (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Coram (Collaboration)
- Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) (Collaboration)
- Yoti Ltd (Project Partner)
- Citizens Advice (Project Partner)
- Active Building Centre (Project Partner)
- Future Homes Alliance (Project Partner)
- The Angelou Centre (Project Partner)
- Atom Bank plc (Project Partner)
Publications
Alharby M
(2024)
A quantitative analysis of the security of PoW-based blockchains
in Cluster Computing
Arnau-González P
(2023)
Toward Automatic Tutoring of Math Word Problems in Intelligent Tutoring Systems
in IEEE Access
Borda A
(2022)
Ethical Issues in AI-Enabled Disease Surveillance: Perspectives from Global Health
in Applied Sciences
Chi Fai David Lam
(2025)
Exploring Federated Learning for Energy Consumption Forecasting in Smart Homes
Clarke J
(2024)
Invisible, Unreadable, and Inaudible Cookie Notices: An Evaluation of Cookie Notices for Users with Visual Impairments
in ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing
Cook S
(2024)
Bluetooth security analysis of general and intimate health IoT devices and apps: the case of FemTech
in International Journal of Information Security
Related Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Award Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP/W032481/1 | 31/03/2022 | 13/07/2022 | £2,793,095 | ||
| EP/W032481/2 | Transfer | EP/W032481/1 | 14/07/2022 | 30/03/2025 | £2,674,250 |
| Description | The FinTrust project was one of the pioneering project in trustworthy AI, as evidenced by the paper published in ACM FaCT on Trust versus Trustworthiness, an often cited paper. This paper set out a principled way of analysing AI-based systems for trust and trustworthiness. The research in the project built on this, in three directions. First, the project identified technological approaches to improve trust by providing high quality AI services without having to share data. Secondly, the project did a large survey demonstrating the link between social and personality background and trust in AI. Finally, the project embedded this discussion on technological trust in guidance for corporal digital responsibility. Throughout this, we worked with small and medium enterprises in the North East to run trials and discuss challenges. |
| Exploitation Route | The work has been taken forward in all three areas mentioned above. The technological developments to build trustworthy AI have continued across the UK and world-wide. Analysis of human aspects of trust has similarly been picked up across international academia. The work on corporate digital responsibility has continued to be shared and propagated in industry through industry-connected academics. |
| Sectors | Financial Services and Management Consultancy |
| Description | AGENCY's response to the House of Lords Communications and Digital Select Committee's inquiry on large language models (LLM) |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| URL | https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/124223/html/ |
| Description | AGENCY's response to the House of Lords Communications and Digital Select Committee's inquiry: The future of news: impartiality, trust and technology |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/128358/pdf/ |
| Description | Response to OFCOM's Third Phase of Online Safety Regulation |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Description | Response to UK Government's White Paper AI Regulation: A Pro Innovation Approach. |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| Description | ESRC IAA Impact Accelerator |
| Amount | £2,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Newcastle University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2024 |
| End | 09/2024 |
| Description | Northern Accelerator Executives into Business |
| Amount | £30,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | United Kingdom Research and Innovation |
| Department | Northern Accelerator |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 08/2024 |
| End | 04/2025 |
| Description | Northern Health Futures Hub |
| Amount | £3,359,256 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/X031012/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2023 |
| End | 10/2026 |
| Title | MKPHOTO2023 |
| Description | The MKPHOTO2023 dataset is designed to research the types of profile photos used by different types of malicious social bots. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This dataset used for estimation of impact of AI-Generated photos on malicious social bots. |
| URL | https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/guardeec/mkphoto2023 |
| Title | Measuring Online Hate on 4chan Using Deep Learning |
| Description | This is the dataset released with the paper titled: "Measuring Online Hate on 4chan Using Deep Learning". This dataset contains a collection of 500,000 posts extracted from the /pol/ board (Politically Incorrect) of 4chan using the 4chan API. The dataset is structured as a single CSV file with one column, com, which includes the raw content of the posts. The dataset does not preserve the structure of threads or replies; instead, it consists of a flat collection of individual posts extracted from /pol/. This format is intended to support applications such as text analysis, natural language processing, and computational social science research by providing a straightforward dataset of raw post content. Dataset Format File Format: CSV (Comma-Separated Values) Columns: com: The raw content of the post. Source The posts were extracted from 4chan's /pol/ board using the official 4chan API. This board is known for hosting discussions on various topics, often with a focus on political content. Due to the nature of the /pol/ board, the content may include offensive language, hate speech, or otherwise sensitive material. Users should exercise caution and consider ethical implications when analysing this dataset. Potential Use Cases Text analysis and natural language processing (NLP). Studies on online discourse, extremism, or political polarization. Research on language usage and sentiment in online forums. Development and testing of machine learning models for text classification or moderation. Example Data Here's an example of what a few rows of the dataset look like: com "Why does no one talk about this?" "The government is hiding the truth!" "We need to take action against this injustice." If you find our dataset useful, please cite our paper: @article{ } |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Measuring Online Hate on 4chan Using Deep Learning Creators Bermudez-Villalva, Adrian1 ORCID icon Mehrnezhad, Maryam1 ORCID icon Toreini, Ehsan2 ORCID icon Description This is the dataset released with the paper titled: "Measuring Online Hate on 4chan Using Deep Learning". This dataset contains a collection of 500,000 posts extracted from the /pol/ board (Politically Incorrect) of 4chan using the 4chan API. The dataset is structured as a single CSV file with one column, com, which includes the raw content of the posts. The dataset does not preserve the structure of threads or replies; instead, it consists of a flat collection of individual posts extracted from /pol/. This format is intended to support applications such as text analysis, natural language processing, and computational social science research by providing a straightforward dataset of raw post content. |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.14219047 |
| Description | Coram Life Education (Coram Group) |
| Organisation | Coram |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Coram Group have established a Memo of Understanding with Newcastle University in 2023 and Coram Life Education formed a collaborative partnership in 2024 with the AGENCY Newcastle team on a programme of studies relating to the Case Study on Mis-/Disinformation and protection from online harms. Empirical research with UK populations includes: 'Young People and Online MisInformation: An Interview Study' - for which we recruited children, young adults, parents and carers and professional stakeholders (healthcare professionals, policy makers/ members of Parliament, teachers, tech industry representatives and voluntary sector organisations) to participate. We have also produced media outputs to support further stakeholder discussion and engagement in primary and secondary schools in the UK. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Coram Life Education have provided specialist expertise in Education, to: the envisioning and design of the research and protocol; recruitment of participants acting as Gatekeeper. Access to policy makers/ informers and to vulnerable populations through enhanced DBS Clearance - children under 18 in schools and community / youth organisations; conduct and analysis of the research; dissemination activities. |
| Impact | This is an interdisciplinary collaboration. Data collection is in progress so outcomes to follow. |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | FCA Finclusion Techsprint |
| Organisation | Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | The collaboration involves the development of an AI-powered solution aimed at simplifying complex legal and financial services. This initiative is intended to provide users with the essential tools to understand everyday financial services and increase their chances of obtaining approval for a suitable financial product. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The TechSprint provides access to the FCA's digital sandbox platform and FCA coordinators who provide advice on our solution. |
| Impact | It represents a multidisciplinary collaboration involving law, computer science, and business. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Swiss Precision Diagnostics (SPD) |
| Organisation | SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics GmbH |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Swiss Precision Diagnostics (SPD) is our academic partner on this grant. We have been having multiple meetings for knowledge exchange since SPD is one of the leading companies in FemTech. They are the creators of ClearBlue Pregnancy Test. |
| Collaborator Contribution | SPD has advised us on the status of the current products in the market and the general policies, standards and regulations practiced globally in this sector. |
| Impact | This collaboration is multi-disciplinary and informs the general approaches in the project. |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Title | ARElight |
| Description | ARElight is an application for a granular view onto sentiments between mentioned named entities in texts. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The escalating volume of textual data necessitates adept and scalable Information Extraction (IE) systems in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyse massive text collections in a detailed manner. While most deep learning systems are designed to handle textual information as it is, the gap in the existence of the interface between a document and the annotation of its parts is still poorly covered. Concurrently, one of the major limitations of most deep-learning models is a constrained input size caused by architectural and computational specifics. To address this, we introduce ARElight, a system designed to efficiently manage and extract information from sequences of large documents by dividing them into segments with mentioned object pairs. Through a pipeline comprising modules for text sampling, inference, optional graph operations, and visualisation, the proposed system transforms large volumes of text in a structured manner. |
| URL | https://guardeec.github.io/arelight_demo/template.html |
| Title | Cross-Encoder based Evidence Retrieval and Question Generation with Improved Prompt for the AVeriTeC Shared Task |
| Description | As part of the AVeriTeC shared task, we developed a pipelined system comprising robust and finely tuned models. Our system integrates advanced techniques for evidence retrieval and question generation, leveraging cross-encoders and large language models (LLMs) for optimal performance. With multi-stage processing, the pipeline demonstrates improvements over baseline models, particularly in handling complex claims that require nuanced reasoning, by improved evidence extraction, question generation and veracity prediction. Through detailed experiments and ablation studies, we provide insights into the strengths and weaknesses of our approach, highlighting the critical role of evidence sufficiency and context dependency in automated fact-checking systems. |
| Type Of Technology | New/Improved Technique/Technology |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | Our system secured a competitive rank, 7th on the development and 12th on the test data, in the AVeriTeC shared task for automated fact verification of claims, underscoring the effectiveness of our methods in addressing the challenges of real-world claim verification. |
| Title | Natural Language Features for AI-Generated Text-Detection |
| Description | The rapid advancement of large language models (LLMs) has introduced new challenges in distinguishing human-written text from AI-generated content. In this work, we explored a pipelined approach for AI-generated text detection that includes a feature extraction step (i.e. prompt-based rewriting features inspired by RAIDAR and content-based features derived from the NELA toolkit) followed by a classification module. Comprehensive experiments were conducted on the Defactify4.0 dataset, evaluating two tasks: binary classification to differentiate human-written and AI-generated text, and multi-class classification to identify the specific generative model used to generate the input text. Our findings reveal that NELA features significantly outperform RAIDAR features in both tasks, demonstrating their ability to capture nuanced linguistic, stylistic, and content-based differences. Combining RAIDAR and NELA features provided minimal improvement, highlighting the redundancy introduced by less discriminative features. Among the classifiers tested, XGBoost emerged as the most effective, leveraging the rich feature sets to achieve high accuracy and generalisation. |
| Type Of Technology | New/Improved Technique/Technology |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Impact | Achieved 4th position at the Defactify 4.0 AI-generated text detection challenge. https://defactify.com/ai_gen_txt_detection.html |
| Title | Vision Transformer with Data Augmentation for AI-Generated Image Detection |
| Description | The aim of this work is to explore the potential of pre-trained vision-language models, e.g. Vision Transformers (ViT), enhanced with advanced data augmentation strategies for the detection of AI-generated images. Our approach leverages a fine-tuned ViT model trained on the Defactify-4.0 dataset, which includes images generated by state-of-the-art models such as Stable Diffusion 2.1, Stable Diffusion XL, Stable Diffusion 3, DALL-E 3, and MidJourney. We employ perturbation techniques like flipping, rotation, Gaussian noise injection, and JPEG compression during training to improve model robustness and generalisation. The experimental results demonstrate that our ViT-based pipeline achieves state-of-the-art performance, significantly outperforming competing methods on both validation and test datasets. |
| Type Of Technology | New/Improved Technique/Technology |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Impact | Achieved 7th position in the Defactify 4.0 AI-generated image detection challenge. https://defactify.com/ai_gen_img_detection.html |
| Description | AGENCY Team Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Workshop for all members of the AGENCY project team. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
| Description | AGENCY: EULA analysis workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | Sires of co-design workshops on how citizens understand texts of privacy policies and user agreements. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://guardeec.github.io/UELA_workshop/index.html |
| Description | Agency Team Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Workshop for all members of the Agency project |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Birmingham Tech Week |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Birmingham Tech Week is the main annual event for technology advances in the West Midlands. This item refers to the invited presentation about research in the FinTrust, UKFin and AGENCY projesct |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Coram Life Education Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Abigail Durrant gave a presentation about AGENCY research findings at this internal conference in debate session with the founders of Smartphone Free Childhood (https://smartphonefreechildhood.co.uk/). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.coramlifeeducation.org.uk/ |
| Description | CyberMi2 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Workshop organised by Co-I of the Agency project, with an emphasis on female/women related issues of online and digital safety. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://sites.google.com/view/maryammjd/cybermi2-2024 |
| Description | ESRC Festival of Social Science |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We held a public event at Newcastle City Library during the ESRC Festival of Social Science in partnership with Newcastle City Council. Over 500 people learned about their GDPR data rights through an engaging, interactive arcade game. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | International Women's Day / Science Week events |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Zoya Pourmirza contributed to the International Women's Day / Science Week event, by leading round table discussion regarding "Collaborative Research and Innovation Across Borders", and also delivering the panel discussion, 13th March 2024 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Interview with by Women of Wearables (WoW) 2023 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | ver the course of the project, our research on FemTech security and privacy appeared in the international news many times. For a collection of these news items, please visit link. Specifically, in November 2023, an extensive interview with Dr. Maryam Mehrnezhad about the project and its findings was published by Women of Wearables (WoW). The link to interview is here. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.womenofwearables.com/new-blog/wow-woman-in-femtech-dr-maryam-mehrnezhad-associate-profes... |
| Description | Interviews with Stakeholders for national public audience (London) on 6th of March 2025 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | On March 6, 2025, a series of formal dialogues took place at Coram Campus in London, bringing together key stakeholders to discuss the impact of online media on children and young people. These discussions were recorded, with Coram Life Education and Newcastle University Research team members facilitating the conversations, whilst Roots & Wings Design Studio handled video and audio documentation. This initiative seeks to contribute meaningful research, inform policy discussions, and provide accessible educational tools to safeguard younger generation's wellbeing in the digital age. Participants included: • CEO of Coram Life Education • CEO of Five Rights Foundation • Founder of Papaya Parents • Principal of The John Wallis Church of England Academy • A member of the House of Lords • Founder of HealthProfessionalsForSaferScreens • Director of UsForThem Each session, lasting approximately one hour, explored the risks and harms associated with online media, particularly its impact on children's body image and self-presentation. Conversations also addressed how parents can support safe smartphone usage at home and school, and the role of educators in fostering digital wellbeing and promoting digital literacy skills. A key focus was gathering expert perspectives on messages for policymakers and tech companies regarding online safety, as well as evaluating the influence of current Online Safety Bills (and Online Safety Act) and identifying future research priorities to strengthen the United Kingdom's leadership in child and young people protection within the background of advancing AI and technology. We are currently awaiting the recorded materials for review before beginning data analysis. Our goal is to produce not only academic research outputs but also educational videos, in collaboration with Coram Life Education, to raise awareness among children, parents, and schools across the country about the risks of smartphone use and online content. Research Objectives 1. Understanding Children's Digital Experiences: We aim to qualitatively assess how children and young people encounter and interpret online information, misinformation, and fake news, recognising their vulnerability to complex digital harms. 2. Evaluating Protective Strategies: We will explore stakeholder insights on existing strategies, policies, and interventions that can empower children, parents or guardians, and educators to promote safe and informed digital engagement. 3. Creating Educational Resources: We will develop audio-visual materials, including edited interview compilations and animated stakeholder accounts, to enhance awareness and support learning among children, young people, and broader stakeholder groups. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |
| Description | JBJI China visit and presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Presentation on Agency research to JBJI in Guangzhou, China |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Keynote at Utility and Cloud Computing 2024, Sharjah, UAE |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Keynote on Agency and UKFin+ related research and research methods such as co-design |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Keynote at ValueTools conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | An invited keynote at an academic conference to present work on financial inclusion and related issues. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Mini Conference and Visit to SPD (Clearblue) (May 2024) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | A mini research conference was held with our industry partner SPD (Swiss Precision Diagnostics) in Bedford, with presentations on FemTech security and privacy, specifically on menopause tech. SPD is an international leader in this space and the maker of the Clearblue pregnancy, ovulation, and fertility tests and monitors. Read this blogpost. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.linkedin.com/posts/maryammehr_today-we-had-the-pleasure-to-have-a-mini-activity-71990859... |
| Description | Online Focus Group with Parents and Children on 26th of February 2025 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | This online focus group aimed to investigate how children aged 9 to 11 and their parents encounter and engage with online media through smartphones and other internet-connected devices. The study also explored how they interpret misinformation and fake news, which can increase their vulnerability to online harm. Our goal is to identify ways to better support older children in making safe choices when interacting with online media and to inform the design of effective tools that promote privacy and protection from harm. We recruited 13 parent-child dyads from six regions across the country through our collaborator, Coram Life Education's school network. With participants' consent, the session was both audio- and video-recorded. The Newcastle research team is currently analysing the data to inform future reports and publications. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |
| Description | Panel Discussion on Citizens' Rights and the Cybersecurity Implications of Wearable Technologies (Feb 2024) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A panel discussion was held at the EPSRC PETRAS flagship Summit in London that addressed the cybersecurity implications of wearable technologies, where Dr Mehrnezhad was invited as a panel member to discuss these implications with a focus on FemTech. Members of the AGENCY team participated in the summit connecting with multiple stakeholders. Link to video is here. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQsjnCFuP9M |
| Description | Participated in PRIME Project workshop: Equitable Digital Futures workshop on 29th January 2025 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Zoya Pourmirza participated in the PRIME Project workshop: Equitable Digital Futures workshop on 29th January 2025, and engaged with researchers and wider audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |
| Description | Policy Brief: 'Rethinking the Regulations of digital Contraception' (Sept 2023) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | We participated, presented, and contributed to an extensive policy brief document; Empowerment, responsibility, and risk: 'Rethinking the Regulations of digital contraception. With a focus on FemTech security and privacy, we discussed the regulatory aspects, alongside a team of experts across disciplines. This document is publicly available in here. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/327184648/McMillanMLI2023RethinkingTheRegulation.pdf |
| Description | Post-CHI summer school |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The summer school included a mix of keynotes and lessons from prominent academic and industry scholars working on interdisciplinary research on topics within the domain of Usable Privacy and Security. We participate in guided hands-on activities for applying what we have learned to devise novel solutions and/or research ideas for addressing practical challenges in privacy and security. It also included lab tours of academic research groups and/or industry sites in Munich University and Google. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://postchisummerschools.uol.de/usable-privacy-and-security/ |
| Description | Presentation titled 'Smoothing the Digital Identity Onboarding Process' at the 'SPRITE+ Showcase 2024: Understandings of Identity' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Talk by Dr Tasos Spiliotopoulos, University of Birmingham, and Prof Rob Dover, Hull University, titled "Smoothing the Digital Identity Onboarding Process". The "SPRITE+ Showcase 2024: Understandings of Identity" took place online on 16th September 2024. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://spritehub.org/2024/08/28/sprite-showcase-2024/ |
| Description | Presentation titled 'Trustworthy Digital Identity: What evidence exists about the nature of the relationship between digital and non-digital identities?' at the 'SPRITE+ Showcase 2024: Understandings of Identity' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Talk by Dr Tasos Spiliotopoulos, University of Birmingham, and Prof Rob Dover, Hull University, titled "Trustworthy Digital Identity: What evidence exists about the nature of the relationship between digital and non-digital identities?". The "SPRITE+ Showcase 2024: Understandings of Identity" took place online on 16th September 2024. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://spritehub.org/2024/08/28/sprite-showcase-2024/ |
| Description | Public engagement event on AI, Innovation and Human Behaviour |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public engagement event on AI, Innovation and Human Behaviour, on 11th Nov 2024. Zoya Pourmirza engaged with public and researchers and presented a poster based on her research on COuntering mis- and disinfoRmatioN in digitalised EneRgy Systems TOwards Net zEro (CORNERSTONE). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Talk on Verifier Dilemma to Guangzhou University, China, representing research from Agency and Fintrust |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Presentation to academic staff at Guangzhou University |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Talk titled 'Digital Identity: A Rapid Evidence Review' at the 'Agenda setting workshop for UK interdisciplinary research in digital identity' organised by the Alan Turing Institute in London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presented (together with Prof Robert Dover) the results of a Rapid Evidence Review on Digital Identity. The 'agenda setting workshop for UK interdisciplinary research in digital identity' took place in-person at the 10th of May 2024 at the Alan Turing Institute in London. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.turing.ac.uk/events/agenda-setting-workshop-uk-interdisciplinary-research-digital-identi... |
| Description | Visit to JNU International Campus, Guangzhou, China |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Visit to the International Campus of JNU in Guangzhou, China |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Workshop Station and Panel Discussion at the Vagina Museum (July 2024) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Members of the AGENCY Research team presented their work on gender and cybersecurity, online privacy, safety and trust in AI/ML, and digital health and medical technologies at an event organized by bleepDigital and hosted by the Vagina Museum in London. Link to the blog post is provided here. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://agencyresearch.net/tech-back-your-bits/ |
| Description | Young Adult Workshop (Nottingham) on 17th of February 2025 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | We conducted an in-person focus group with five young people aged 13 to 15 from Nottingham. Participants were recruited through our collaborators, Coram Life Education and Flying High Expressive Arts CIC. The focus group sessions explored two key topics: 1. Young People's Online Media Consumption: Discussions covered how young people encounter and engage with online media via smartphones and other internet-connected devices, as well as how they interpret misinformation and fake news that may expose them to online harm. 2. Media Influence on Body-Image and Self-Presentation: Participants reflected on how they view online media, such as pictures and videos, and how this content can sometimes affect their self-image and emotions. 3. The messages that young people want to deliver to policy makers and big technology companies. The sessions were audio- and video-recorded with the support of Roots & Wings Design Studio. The Newcastle research team will analyse the data to identify ways to better support young people and older children (9-11 years old in particular) in making safe choices when interacting with online media. The findings will also inform the design of practical tools that promote privacy and protection from online harm. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |