The Uncertainty of Identity: Linking Spatiotemporal Information Between Virtual and Real Worlds

Lead Research Organisation: University College London
Department Name: Geography

Abstract

This is an interdisciplinary proposal from Computer Science (St. Andrews), Engineering (City University London) and Geography (UCL), in partnership with experts in Visual Analytics at Purdue University in the United States. Our goal is to link information pertaining to human characteristics in 'real' and 'virtual' worlds in order to better manage the uncertainties inherent in establishing human identity and linking it to geographic locations. Our basic premise is that uncertainty in identifying and characterising individuals may be managed and understood by: (a) detecting and exploring spatio-temporal profiles of lifestyles and activity patterns; (b) concatenating and conflating detailed, but under-exploited, datasets in the virtual and real domains; and, more speculatively (c) soliciting and analysing crowd-sourced volunteered data that link physical and virtual identities. Through these actions it will be possible to improve our ability to characterize and validate an individual's identity, to infer more informative profiles of individuals and groups that bridge the real and virtual domains, and to document and manage the uncertainties inherent in these tasks. Aspects of this highly innovative research agenda are inevitably risky and speculative, but following an EPSRC 'WDYTYA' Sandpit we have appraised risk, examined the feasibility of data acquisition and addressed ethical approval issues.

The research will require multiple sources of data about a user's online activities (henceforth 'virtual' sources, such as multiple social networks, commercial information, purchases, etc.) alongside more conventional data (henceforth 'real' sources: population censuses, names registers, telephone directories, social surveys, etc.). Systematic linkage will be used to better resolve the question "Who do I think you are?" We propose the exploitation of complementary databases and methods in order to relate 'real' and 'virtual' properties, to glean, synergise and cross validate new information and to leverage value from secondary sources. This will be achieved by developing novel methods of data collection, maintenance, exploration, analysis and modelling, that are efficient, effective, scalable, and safe to use.

The work programme will be undertaken through a programme of six inter-linked work packages in the UK and US, viz:

Work Package 1: Data Collection Tools
The development of new and effective tools for virtual data collection

Work Package 2: Text Analytics
Development of text analytics algorithms to describe clusters of concepts, or associations between certain concepts or named entities.

Work Package 3: Data Anonymisation and Privacy Preservation
Achieving a balance between the benefits of enhanced data collection (Work Package 1) and text mining (Work Package 2) versus the imperatives of preserving individual privacy.

Work Package 4: Cybergeodemographics
Use of primary (Work Packages 1 and 2) and secondary data to relate virtual Internet traffic to the probable physical locations from which it emanated; and the development of typologies of social networks that are robust, generalized and related to physical locations.

Work Package 5: Spatio-temporal Network Analysis
Development and application of spatio-temporal network analysis techniques to emerging social and geographic networks of individuals and the systems used by them.

Work package 6: Visual Analytics
Deployment of a range of visual exploratory data analysis techniques to alert users to deviations from trend or average behaviour and profile. http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org/UncertaintyOfIdentity/index.html

Planned Impact

An essential element of the research programme is engagement with the government intelligence services, the Home Office and Homeland Security departments both in the UK and USA. We will address the concerns of UK and USA stakeholders in establishing the identity of citizens, not least in the interests of national security. This will provide key opportunities to develop effective working relationships and end use of the work in the UK and US.

Government bodies (GCHQ, Home Office, CPNI, US Department of Homeland Security) and potential commercial software partners will be kept informed through the project of the benefits of responding to the technical and socio-economic challenges facing the accurate establishment of the identity of citizens in the UK, USA and India. This will enhance their ability to deliver effective solutions and will also expose them to a range of emerging technologies.

There are unique opportunities through this project to engage with the complex socio-technical issue of identity, and to undertake a number of high profile public engagement activities. We envisage that the websites that will be developed for the project will attract up to one million unique users per annum throughout the lifetime of the project. This will be driven largely through interest in the geo-genealogy of family names in the 'real' world, and we will use the sites to develop corresponding interest in the geographies of digital differentiation in people's ability to access and use NICTs, to seek information, to conduct transactions, and to participate in online communities.

In the same spirit, the mobile application for data collection will also attract a considerable number of users. We will invite people to use the applications through social network websites and mobile application store (such as Apple App Store and Android Market), reaching younger generations in particular. The information collected through the mobile application will be made available to the general public through the dedicated websites but also by means of the mobile application itself and others specifically designed for social networking websites (e.g. a Facebook application). These innovative initiatives will stimulate awareness in the public about the problem of identification and the related issues both from a societal and a technological point of view.

The project is supported by the involvement of GCHQ, CPNI, and Home Office in the UK and the Department of Homeland Security in the USA. This direct involvement of the stakeholders in the project will greatly help to exploit the tools and technologies that we plan to develop. The exploitation of technologies developed from the project will be enabled and supported by the consortium agreement that will be established among the partners at the beginning of the project.

The algorithms for identification of outliers may be suitable for use in commercial products and we will take steps to make contact with potential commercial partners, as well as relevant government agencies. We have established links with British Telecommunications Security practice to pilot some of our developed algorithms. BT has been working in the area of customer data mining for the last few years to understand the threats that are posed to the information infrastructure. They have recently acquired a company called Counterpane which collects alarm data from customer devices such as hosts, routers and switches. The developed algorithms can be tested using some of the BT's proprietary data under non-disclosure agreements. BT is also working closely with CPNI to develop an intelligent visualization tool for the monitoring of critical national infrastructure threats.

We also plan to offer advice to governmental agencies about requirements and procurement of systems for identification, including algorithms and techniques developed in this project.
 
Description 1) Identification of the community structures in social media datasets by using the attributes of information, in this case the user name, which users provide while registering with a social media service.



2) Analysis of the Spatial and Temporal activities of the Social media usage around different world cities.



3) Development of a prediction model for studying the spreading of information on the Internet, considering the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson as case study.



4) Development of a model for studying and predicting the interactions of physical mobility and communication patterns (mobile phone calls) in presence of an epidemics.



5) Development of a prediction model of future locations of individuals given their previous movement patterns and their social ties.



6) Development of methods to group email addresses based on semantics of surnames using vector space model.



7) Study of the geo-genealogy aspects by using internet search histories.
Exploitation Route The identification and obfuscation algorithms developed as part of the "Uncertainty of Identity" project have attracted interest from the UK Civil Service. The UK Civil Service also provided funding for the purchase of a 9-node Spark cluster for evaluating parallel implementations of the algorithms developed in the project. Further work in this area is currently under discussion as part of The Alan Turing Institute activities.
The core work on family names has been used in a Wellcome Trust programme to establish the genetic origins of the People of the British Isles - names were used as genetic indicators in much of the research, See http://www.peopleofthebritishisles.org/
In the social sciences the work underpins a significant part of the work of the Consumer Data Research Centre (www.cdrc.ac.uk) as an indicator of residential and social mobility. An 'Ethnicity Estimator' for classifying given and forename pairs has been successfully developed in association with the Office for National Statistics and is available for download by approved research users at ee.cdrc.ac.uk. It has been licenced for use by researchers in a eight universities worldwide (as of March 2019). The Ethnicity Estimator software was used alongside the ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre Linked Consumer Registers to create current small area ethnicity estimates during the first wave of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. These estimates were provided at the request of the Joint Biosecurity Centre.
Sectors Aerospace

Defence and Marine

Communities and Social Services/Policy

Education

Healthcare

Government

Democracy and Justice

Culture

Heritage

Museums and Collections

Retail

Security and Diplomacy

URL http://www.uncertaintyofidentity.com/
 
Description Various media articles based on the named.publicprofiler.org website, which had over 1.5 million searches in March 2016. The website continues to be very heavily used in 2017. The identification and obfuscation algorithms developed as part of the "Uncertainty of Identity" project have attracted interest from the UK Civil Service. The UK Civil Service also provided funding for the purchase of a 9-node Spark cluster for evaluating parallel implementations of the algorithms developed in the project. Further work in this area is currently under discussion as part of The Alan Turing Institute activities. Starting from the findings and the methodologies developed in this grant, Dr Musolesi has recently investigated other aspects related to the development of identification (and obfuscation) techniques from personal data through the EPSRC-grant "UPRISE-IoT: User-centric Privacy & Security IoT". In particular, Musolesi and the other researchers involved in the project has used novel sensor modalities such as magnetometers embedded in off-the-shelf phones, also combined with location data, in order to develop novel user identification methods. Another area of investigation has been the use of metadata in social media, a topic that was explored extensively in this grant. A key aspect of Dr Musolesi's research agenda has been the analysis of the interpretability of the machine learning algorithms used for identification. We believe that this is essential aspect, also considering the issues related to the adoption of "black-box" algorithms for a variety of very sensitive applications, such as those for national and cyber-security. In general, there has been increased interest not only in the research community, but also among practitioners towards the research outputs of this grant. This has led to discussions and interactions with governmental organisations, also through the Alan Turing Institute.
First Year Of Impact 2012
Sector Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Retail
Impact Types Cultural

Societal

Economic

 
Description British Council
Amount £125,000 (GBP)
Organisation British Council 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2017 
End 05/2020
 
Description British Council
Amount £108,000 (GBP)
Funding ID SA08-009 
Organisation British Council 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2014 
End 09/2015
 
Description PhD studentship (Alistair Leak)
Amount £104,000 (GBP)
Organisation Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2013 
End 08/2017
 
Description CACI Ltd 
Organisation CACI International Inc
Department CACI Ltd
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Data acquisition for CDRC service. Also involved in the Masters Research Dissertation Programme (formally known as the Retail Research Masters Research initiative) gives masters level students the opportunity to conduct their dissertation with the co-supervision of a consumer organisation. The Consumer Data Research Centre facilitate the initiative. The student is offered a stimulating project to work on with co-supervision from the a major UK business. They receive industry advice on how data are used in real world problem solving, and experience of addressing problems that matter. A prize is awarded to the best three dissertations (funded by the CDRC). Research findings are showcased to an audience of leading retailers, at the Annual Data Analysts User Group annual conference (formally known as Demographics User Group) and the work is published and made freely available on the CDRC website.
Collaborator Contribution To provide the Consumer Register datasets for 2014-2019 for the purposes of social science research. Member of CDRC Advisory Board. Also partner in the Masters Research Dissertation Programme where representatives from major UK consumer companies, or businesses which handle consumer data, co-supervise the Masters dissertations. This presents a great opportunity to get a Masters student to help the organisation make progress with research into major current issues, and projects that have been considered, but not had the resource to carry out. The student works with data - the organisation's customer data, open data or academic sector data and can maximise the value obtained from this. The partner provides the student with a £500 bursary on completion of a successful dissertation.
Impact Member of CDRC Advisory Board. CDRC Data Licence Agreement for Consumer Registers data available to approved CDRC Users through Secure tier of CDRC service. Agreement not extended beyond Feb 2019. Data will nolonger be available through CDRC Service. Data used in CDRC Linked Consumer Registers https://data.cdrc.ac.uk/product/linked-consumer-registers controlled product Population Churn https://data.cdrc.ac.uk/product/cdrc-population-churn-index and Modelled Ethnicity Proportions https://data.cdrc.ac.uk/dataset/modelled-ethnicity-proportions safeguarded products Data used by CDRC PhD student Guy Lansley for thesis 'Big Data: Geodemographics and Representation' CDRC case study: Lansley, G., Li, W., Longley, P.A. 'Representing Population Dynamics from Administrative and Consumer Registers' https://www.cdrc.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Areas-and-Activities.pdf. CDRC Masters Research Dissertation Programme: Yiqao Huang (2015) Shopping centre's turnover estimation using microsimulation: an exploratory research in Inverness; Eirini Milaiou (2016) Topic extraction and document classification on textual survey data with unsupervised modelling techniques. One 2020 project - Creating Small Area Populations.
Start Year 2015
 
Description Data Licence Agreement: Datatalk Ltd 
Organisation Datatalk Statistical Solutions Ltd
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Data acquisition for CDRC service.
Collaborator Contribution Provision of historic electoral roll (1998-2002) data to CDRC service for the purposes of social science research.
Impact Historic electoral roll data products available through the CDRC Safeguarded and Secure service.
Start Year 2017
 
Title named.publicprofiler.org 
Description Highly innovative publicly available website that allows individuals to identify the origins of their surnames along with those of their partners/friends. The tool allows users to view predictions of where they and their partners/friends first met. The tool was widely featured in the regional, national and international press and has attracted hundreds of thousands of unique users. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2015 
Impact The website has been featured extensively in the regional, national, international and online press and has attracted hundreds of thousands of unique users. It remains a popular tool whenever blogs or web forums pick it up in activities adn events. 
URL http://named.publicprofiler.org
 
Description Creating a New Open Geodemographic Classification of the UK Using households and 2011 Census Data 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Joint presentation with Chris Gale and Alex Singleton (University of Liverpool) at 46th Annual Conference of Regional Science Association International - British and Irish Section, Harrogate, Yorkshire, August 22nd to 24th 2017. To discuss issues arising from the publication of 'The Routledge Handbook of Census Resources, Methods and Applications', ed. by John Stillwell. The debate had will inform the development, format, and outputs of the 2021 UK Census of Population.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.rsai-bis.org/
 
Description Exhibitor: 'Genetic Maps' Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, 1-8 July 2012. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The research was selected (from very strong national competition) for a display on Genetic Maps at the Royal Society's prestigious Summer Exhibition, showing how genetic makeup, names and facial characteristics are distributed across the UK.

The Exhibition attracted 11,120 visitors between 3-8 July 2012.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
URL http://sse.royalsociety.org/2012/exhibits/genetic-maps/
 
Description Exhibitor: Big Bang Science Fair, EdExcel, London, 14-17 March. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Exhibition stand featuring interactive exhibits that helped users to characterise their identity - genetic maps, taste tests, geographic names profiler, 3-D face scanner and mapping system. A major exhibit at the 'Big Bang' Science fair, with considerable and wide ranging public engagement.

General increased public awareness, consistent with the objectives of the Big Bang science fair - the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths for young people in the UK.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL https://www.thebigbangfair.co.uk/london/programme_for_2013/
 
Description GeoCom: Resilient Futures 2015 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Annual flagship event
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Invited guest speaker: Founder of ESRI, Jack Dangermond lecture 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Almost 100 delegates attended a talk by the ESRI founder Jack Dangermond, where I was invited to speak about the Consumer Data Research Centre and its key outputs to date. Post my talk the CDRC had an increased interest in its research activities.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Invited opening keynote speaker, European Commission DG REGIO Workshop: 'How can Regional Policy Benefit from Big Data? 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Here I spoke about the merits of Big Data to provide new insights for regional policy; I also referenced some of the key work of the Consumer Data Research Centre and some of its outputs since the grant started.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Invited opening keynote speaker: Smart Geospatial Expo, Seoul 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact I delivered the keynote, where I discussed the work of the Consumer Data Research Centre and fielded questions by attendees, leading to a lengthy discussion and debate. The CDRC reported heightened enquiries post my presentation.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Invited panellist and presenter at the Association of American Geographers Annual Conference (AAG 2016) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact I was invited to the Association of American Geographers Annual Conference in San Francisco to debate and discuss various issues pertaining to Geography and the Consumer Data Research Centre, sparking questions and discussions about the CDRC. We witnessed an increase in enquiries post my panel session.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Licensor, kiosk exhibit, Glasgow Science Centre 'BodyWorks: Health and Wellbeing in the 21st Century' exhibition. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Licensing to the Glasgow Science Centre's £1.9 million BodyWorks exhibition of a Family Names interactive exhibit, based on worldnames.publicprofiler.org, as a key part of its exhibit which 'aims to allow visitors to learn about genetics, inheritance and cell biology'.

From its opening in April 2013 to August 2013, the exhibit received 'overwhelmingly positive feedback' and attracted over 143,000 visitors and over 32,000 school children.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012,2013,2014
 
Description Licensor, kiosk exhibit, London Science Museum 'Who am I?' exhibition (five year term) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact An interactive exhibit was developed with London Science Museum (approximately 2.7m visitors per annum) where the exhibit was included in the 'Who Am I?' interactive exhibition (2010-15). Here, it was used to deliver engage visitors with complex issues of identity, genetics and inheritance by directly relating these ideas to them and their own families.

In the first year alone (2010-11), an evaluation found the redeveloped Who Am I? gallery had over a million visitors (twice the expected number).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011,2012,2013,2014
 
Description Masterclass on "Introduction to Networks" for the Royal Institution 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Around 20 students (13-14 years old) attended the class. These students were the top students in computing in the respective schools. The initiative raised interest towards the area of network analysis.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Media - Great Britain's Most Common Surnames 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact We create a map of the most popular surnames around the UK. As well as mapping the distribution of names from the electoral roll, Twitter account surnames had been included. The map was picked up by a number of media outlets in the UK, which are listed below:

a) Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2313590/The-interactive-map-reveals-Britains-popular-surnames.html)
b) Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2013/apr/22/popular-surnames-great-britain-mapped)
c) Evening Standard (http://www.standard.co.uk/news/techandgadgets/londons-mostused-surnames-revealed-in-interactive-map-8586395.html)
d) LBC 97.3 FM (http://www.lbc.co.uk/the-latest-lbc-presenter-blogs-4001/entry/93/9488)
e) Nouvelles De France (http://www.ndf.fr/identite/24-04-2013/immigration-les-listes-electorales-et-twitter-nous-disent-tout#.UXfDe8rKRCw)

The map of the "most popular surnames around the UK" was picked up by a number of media outlets in the UK and was good in terms of outreach.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL http://www.uncertaintyofidentity.com/GB_Names/Mapping.aspx
 
Description Media - Twitter Ethnicity Maps 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Muhammad Adnan at UCL used Twitter's API to examine a million geotagged tweets for London during September and October, 2012. He used Onomap - also created in UCL - to give the most likely ethnicity of each name. The result was maps of different ethnic groups in the Greater London. The maps were published by Guardian.

The "Twitter Ethnicity Maps" were published by Guardian in 2012 and generated alot of public interest.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
URL http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/gallery/2012/oct/23/twitter-ehtnicity-london-map
 
Description Media - Twitter Names Across Greater London 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact In December, 2012 we analysed four million geo-tagged Tweets sent during August to November, 2012. The result was a map of the Twitter Names Across Greater London. The map was published by Guardian and Londonist.

a) Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2012/dec/13/map-twitter-names-london)
b) Londonist (http://londonist.com/2012/12/map-shows-common-twitter-names-across-london.php)

The map of the "Twitter Names Across Greater London" was published by Guardian and Londonist and was good in terms of outreach.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
URL http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2012/dec/13/map-twitter-names-london
 
Description Media: 'What's in a surname? A new view of the United States base on the distribution of common last names.' National Geographic, Feb 2011, p20-21 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Publication in a magazine with a very large international circulation.

An increase in interest in the related website worldnames.publicprofiler.org, which attracts nearly 1 million unique users per annum.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
URL http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/02/geography/usa-surnames-interactive
 
Description Media: Citylabs.com 'Mapping the Hotspots of Britain's surnames' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Citylabs.com are an American based media house looking to expand into the UK. This is the second time they have reffed one of my projects as part of their aim to expand. As a result of their feature the site was accessed by large numbers of users.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Media: Daily Mail 'Where is YOUR surname from?' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Popular national newspaper featured the Named site in their online newspaper. The feature article was located on the homepage, very near to the main headline story. As a result we witnessed a huge increase of traffic to the site and also received a significantly high volume of requests about names/surnames from members of the general public.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Media: Mirror Online 'Where does your surname originate from' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact One of the UK's most popular national newspapers featured the Named site online. As a result the site reported an increased number of hits.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Media: Stuff.co.nz 'Where does your surname come from' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact New Zealand's popular online news portal featured the Named site; as a result I received significant follow up emails voicing interest in the project from academic, media and the general public.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Media: Sydney Morning Herald 'Where does your name come from? Website offers clues to origin of name' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact One of Australia's prominent media houses ran a feature article on the Named site, with references to another one of my names project. As a result I received a large volume of emails from international members of the public, interested in learning about their own surname.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Media: Telegraph Online 'Where does your surname come from - this simple search can tell you' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Telegraph Online featured the Named site; as a result we reported a huge surge in hits to the website as well as requests for further media appearances.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Media: Twickenham warms to Billy Twelvetrees - a name we'll remember. Daily Telegraph, 5th February 2013, p 21 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Stimulation of further public interest in the results of the research

Increased interest in the associated website worldnames.publicprofiler.org, that continues to attract c. 1,500 unique users every day and nearly 1 million unique users per annum (there are very high peaks in usage following media features on the work).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/england/9847653/Twickenham-warms-to-Billy-...
 
Description Media: Wales Online - New map says our Sportsstars' surnames are more common in England than in Wales 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Online coverage of the Named site - Wales Online is an online news resource targeted at the Wales population but has a far wider readership. This was one of the first online media references to the Named site and we subsequently received a large volume of hits to the site.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Media: Where are you now? The what, where' and how of GIS.' The Sunday Times of Malta, Tech Sunday, April 24 2011 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact The article sparked interest in the Uncertainty of Identity project in Malta, and led to the addition of Malta Electoral Roll data to the worldnames database.

An increase in usage in the worldnames.publicprofiler.org website, that attracts nearly 1 million unique users per annum.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
URL http://worldnames.publicprofiler.org
 
Description Media:Kent & Sussex Courier 'Map reveals where your surname is most popular' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Local/regional coverage of the Named site by Kent's popular local online paper. As a result there was an increased traffic to the website.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Media:Metro Online 'This map will show you where your surname is most popular in the UK' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Online coverage of the Named site - Metro Online is an online equivalent of the free newspaper distributed across London. This also has an excellent online readership across London. As a result of this feature we received significant media/research interest in our site.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Understanding ethnic segregation in Britain through consumer data 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact 46th Annual Conference of Regional Science Association International - British and Irish Section, Harrogate, Yorkshire, August 22nd to 24th 2017. A joint presentation with Tian Lan as a contribution to policy debates on ethnic segregation in the UK. Given the nature the topic, there was much discussion afterwards.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.rsai-bis.org/