The i in online

The i in online educates primary school children aged 9-11 and secondary school children aged 14-19, (their parents and teachers) about using and providing their personal information online and also highlights the potential pitfalls of sharing too much personal information on the internet when using blogs or social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc, and not managing privacy settings effectively. Through interactive sessions, using PowerPoint and videos, legal experts highlight the regulatory and legal aspects of this topic, whilst also demonstrating technical issues and illustrating mechanisms to help protect personal data whilst using the internet.

Please see our website for further information, www.theiinonline.org

Progress to date

Since September 2009, the 21-strong consortium of The i in online have had approximately 200 lawyers/law students volunteer to support nearly 8,000 school children and parents in 115 schools across the UK and Ireland. Speechly Bircham’s 11 volunteers have provided over 665 pro bono hours, valued at over £230,000.

The i in online has brought together a large consortium of legal professionals from across various different fields who raise awareness of online issues by delivering the presentations and promoting active learning through the media project. The campaign was originally spearheaded by Speechly Bircham’s CSR team and supported by the firm’s Information Law team, but quickly developed to include other organisations.

Child Online Privacy Code
On the 14 July, we launched the first Child Online Privacy Code. On 28 January 2011, The i in online co-ordinated for almost 6,300 children in the UK aged from 8-14 to be involved in Data Protection Day. The children completed drawings of cartoons and icons that depict certain aspects of a Privacy Policy which enabled us to design a Child Online Privacy Code; a type of highway code for the internet, which companies may wish to licence for use with their privacy notices to help raise awareness to children about how much data they are giving away and how to protect their personal information online. 

Largest UK Child Privacy Survey
Alongside the code we also launched the largest UK survey of young people’s views to online privacy. 4,100 children aged 8-14 completed the survey, which covered topics including: number of children using Social Networking Sites and/or avatars, views around privacy policies and legal input to these, use of photos online and age of consent. The analysis of the survey was conducted by Prof Andy Phippen from Plymouth University.

To download a copy of the survey, please click here.

Primary and Secondary school sessions

The 30-40 minute session is interactive and fun for the children, using power point and cartoon style video clips to cover; what is personal data, how is it used and also misused whilst online. The presentation is delivered by lawyers as we feel it is important to also highlight an individual’s privacy and human rights online, using real life examples to illustrate the issues. The presenters give examples of how children can safe guard their information on the internet and provide hints and tips to achieve this.

The i in online Film Competition

A Film Competition was run for secondary schools across the UK, which closed at the end of March 2011. We are delighted with the results from the students, all the entries were of a high standard. We have three winning schools and we will be announcing these shortly.

The judges of the Competition were:

• The Walt Disney Company UK
• Sky
• The Information Commissioner’s Office
• Speechly Bircham LLP

For more information please visit our website, www.theiinonline.org/secondary-schools/competition/