Periodic Reporting for period 2 - RAYUELA (EMPOWERING AND EDUCATING YOUNG PEOPLE FOR THE INTERNET BY PLAYING)
Période du rapport: 2022-04-01 au 2023-09-30
The RAYUELA project brings together experts from different areas of knowledge (such as Law Enforcement Agencies, social scientists, computer scientists and engineers, educators, lawyers, and ethicists) to develop novel methodologies that allow better understanding the drivers and human factors affecting certain ways of cyber-criminality especially relevant for minors. In particular, the project proposes using a serious game as such a new method to prevent, investigate, and mitigate cybercriminal behaviour. Thus, within the scope of the project an interactive story-like videogame has been developed with two main purposes: (1) Prevention: to allow minors to learn good practices online while playing, in a safe environment, without taking any risk; (2) Research: to analyse the data gathered through the game to identify risk factors, thus providing Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) with scientifically sound foundations to develop evidence-informed policies.
The final release of the RAYUELA videogame involves 6 cyber-adventures, which subtly address topics such as online grooming, cyberbullying, fake news, or technological threats like phishing, and is available in 13 different languages. The videogame has been tested by around 2000 minors all over Europe with positive feedback. The developed videogame has also proved to be an effective prevention tool, based on feedback from LEAs, educators, and NGOs, as well as a promising research tool, which has already provided interesting results and opens also new research venues. LEAs from all over the World, as well as European educational institutions and NGOs, have shown interest in using the videogame in their operational prevention and awareness campaigns. The project consortium has agreed to make the game available free of charge for non-commercial purposes under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 and to upload it to the Europol Tool Repository with the aim of having actually a positive impact on society.
The final release of the RAYUELA videogame involves 6 cyber-adventures, which subtly address topics such as online grooming, cyberbullying, fake news, or technological threats like phishing, and is available in 13 different languages. The videogame has been tested by around 2000 minors all over Europe with positive feedback. The developed videogame has also proved to be an effective prevention tool, based on feedback from LEAs, educators, and NGOs, as well as a promising research tool, which has already provided interesting results and opens also new research venues. LEAs from all over the World, as well as European educational institutions and NGOs, have shown interest in using the videogame in their operational prevention and awareness campaigns. The project consortium has agreed to make the game available free of charge for non-commercial purposes under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 and to upload it to the Europol Tool Repository with the aim of having actually a positive impact on society.
During the first 18 months, the RAYUELA project has run smoothly without any major deviation and has begun producing promising results linked to dissemination, exploitation and impact potential. The activities are progressing well and according to the planning established. The project has achieved 9 milestones and 38 deliverables have been submitted in the first reporting period of the project.
The following results are highlighted:
- Exhaustive literature review and systematic search of sentences to obtain information about the characteristics of offenders and victims, and the modus operandi used in each cybercrime. 51 sentences were analyzed regarding Online Grooming (OG), 46 of CyberBullying (CB), and 20 of Human Trafficking (HT) (D1.1 D1.4 D1.5)
- Interviews conducted with key informants in OG, CB and HT from 4 European geographic areas: 15 convicted offenders, 8 victims, and 23 experts in OG; 8 offenders, 12 victims, and 13 experts for CB; 10 interviews with victims and offenders, and 10 experts for HT (D1.2 D1.3)
- Exhaustive analysis of the main risks and protective factors in OG, CB and cyberhate, HT for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and misinformation, deception and fake news (MD & FN) (D1.6 D1.7)
- Survey carried out among young people aged 12 to 17 in Madrid and Valencia to find out how young people use the Internet and to compare the information obtained on cybercrimes studied (D1.7)
- Set of recommendations to mitigate the vulnerabilities and risks found in the main types of IoT devices used by minors, from the point of view of cyber security and privacy, to protect them against cyberattacks and data leaks
- Study of the impact of the new Cybercrime-as-a-Service (CaaS) models exploiting IoT vulnerabilities in collaboration with LEAs
- Detailed roadmap for the design of the serious game by integrating the insights and results of WP1 and WP2 about cybercrime behaviour and how it can be adequately implemented, observed, and measured within the game (D3.1)
- First prototype of the serious game designed and developed based on the information of D3.1 including the first two interactive adventures. A set of game mechanics, interactions, and metrics to be collected during the game have also been defined to be validated in the prototype and then used in the next releases of the serious game (D3.4 D3.7)
- Development of a detailed implementation plan (D5.1) to test RAYUELA’s serious game in unsupervised and supervised environments, also localized in each of the partner countries, and a users’ engagement strategy that will help the consortium to set up the pilot communities in each pilot setting (D5.2)
- A framework to build an ad hoc model to generate synthetic data to enable the fine-tuning of all data analysis algorithms and techniques has been designed and developed
- Drafting of an ethical code for social research dealing with children and young people interacting with RAYUELA’s serious game (D4.8)
The following results are highlighted:
- Exhaustive literature review and systematic search of sentences to obtain information about the characteristics of offenders and victims, and the modus operandi used in each cybercrime. 51 sentences were analyzed regarding Online Grooming (OG), 46 of CyberBullying (CB), and 20 of Human Trafficking (HT) (D1.1 D1.4 D1.5)
- Interviews conducted with key informants in OG, CB and HT from 4 European geographic areas: 15 convicted offenders, 8 victims, and 23 experts in OG; 8 offenders, 12 victims, and 13 experts for CB; 10 interviews with victims and offenders, and 10 experts for HT (D1.2 D1.3)
- Exhaustive analysis of the main risks and protective factors in OG, CB and cyberhate, HT for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and misinformation, deception and fake news (MD & FN) (D1.6 D1.7)
- Survey carried out among young people aged 12 to 17 in Madrid and Valencia to find out how young people use the Internet and to compare the information obtained on cybercrimes studied (D1.7)
- Set of recommendations to mitigate the vulnerabilities and risks found in the main types of IoT devices used by minors, from the point of view of cyber security and privacy, to protect them against cyberattacks and data leaks
- Study of the impact of the new Cybercrime-as-a-Service (CaaS) models exploiting IoT vulnerabilities in collaboration with LEAs
- Detailed roadmap for the design of the serious game by integrating the insights and results of WP1 and WP2 about cybercrime behaviour and how it can be adequately implemented, observed, and measured within the game (D3.1)
- First prototype of the serious game designed and developed based on the information of D3.1 including the first two interactive adventures. A set of game mechanics, interactions, and metrics to be collected during the game have also been defined to be validated in the prototype and then used in the next releases of the serious game (D3.4 D3.7)
- Development of a detailed implementation plan (D5.1) to test RAYUELA’s serious game in unsupervised and supervised environments, also localized in each of the partner countries, and a users’ engagement strategy that will help the consortium to set up the pilot communities in each pilot setting (D5.2)
- A framework to build an ad hoc model to generate synthetic data to enable the fine-tuning of all data analysis algorithms and techniques has been designed and developed
- Drafting of an ethical code for social research dealing with children and young people interacting with RAYUELA’s serious game (D4.8)
A significant progress beyond the state of the art will be achieved thanks to the RAYUELA project. The main research fields have been identified:
-Multidisciplinary research framework for the identification of cybercrime driver in OG, CB, HT, and MD & FN
-RAYUELA’s serious game: Multiplatform and multi-language Unity game with Interactive storylines, able to offer an immersive experience to young players
-Neural machine translation module to facilitate player immersion and maximize engagement
-Basic toolkit with a bundle of RAYUELA’s serious game, recommendations and educational materials
-Educators toolkit with dedicated teaching materials, to enable guided discussion on cybercrime and foster early identification of potentially risky behaviours
-Guidelines for pilot studies in a supervised environment
-Best practices and policy briefs on cybercrime, to foster prevention and awareness, in order to effectively influence the cybercrime policy cycle
-Strategy on online privacy, ethics and GDPR to offer guidance and monitoring of all necessary mechanisms to maximize RAYUELA’s compliance with EU directives
-Profiling and behavioural models, based on ML/AI data analysis algorithms and profiling methodology based on Bayesian Multilevel Regression and Poststratification methods
-Capacity building for LEAs on cybercrime
-Educational content and campaigns to foster awareness, early detection and mitigation of risk behaviours and habits.
The progress beyond the state of the art will allow the achievement of the following expected impacts and results at the end of the RAYUELA project:
-Empower young people to recognize risks and threats intrinsically linked to the use of the Internet, therefore educating them to avoid cybercrime and its potential consequences
-Fight against cybercrime by means of innovative technologies and capabilities based on new recommendations, policies and cybersecurity measures, capacity building and educational materials
-Increase the knowledge among EU LEAs on how to face growing challenges for cybercrime and its effects in children and young adults
- Provide scientific evidences related to the considered cybercrimes that can be used as input for the development of measures and policies to protect minors’ online and improve their online experience
- Produce policy-making toolkits for security policy makers, regarding the human role in victimization and criminalization for cybercrime.
-Multidisciplinary research framework for the identification of cybercrime driver in OG, CB, HT, and MD & FN
-RAYUELA’s serious game: Multiplatform and multi-language Unity game with Interactive storylines, able to offer an immersive experience to young players
-Neural machine translation module to facilitate player immersion and maximize engagement
-Basic toolkit with a bundle of RAYUELA’s serious game, recommendations and educational materials
-Educators toolkit with dedicated teaching materials, to enable guided discussion on cybercrime and foster early identification of potentially risky behaviours
-Guidelines for pilot studies in a supervised environment
-Best practices and policy briefs on cybercrime, to foster prevention and awareness, in order to effectively influence the cybercrime policy cycle
-Strategy on online privacy, ethics and GDPR to offer guidance and monitoring of all necessary mechanisms to maximize RAYUELA’s compliance with EU directives
-Profiling and behavioural models, based on ML/AI data analysis algorithms and profiling methodology based on Bayesian Multilevel Regression and Poststratification methods
-Capacity building for LEAs on cybercrime
-Educational content and campaigns to foster awareness, early detection and mitigation of risk behaviours and habits.
The progress beyond the state of the art will allow the achievement of the following expected impacts and results at the end of the RAYUELA project:
-Empower young people to recognize risks and threats intrinsically linked to the use of the Internet, therefore educating them to avoid cybercrime and its potential consequences
-Fight against cybercrime by means of innovative technologies and capabilities based on new recommendations, policies and cybersecurity measures, capacity building and educational materials
-Increase the knowledge among EU LEAs on how to face growing challenges for cybercrime and its effects in children and young adults
- Provide scientific evidences related to the considered cybercrimes that can be used as input for the development of measures and policies to protect minors’ online and improve their online experience
- Produce policy-making toolkits for security policy makers, regarding the human role in victimization and criminalization for cybercrime.