Date:	September 2014 - September 2020
Project leader:	Jonathan Lusthaus

Cybercrime is a major challenge facing the world. Impacting countless citizens around the globe, it has developed into an enormous profit-making industry. Many approaches investigating cybercrime thus far have focused on the technological elements, but there is now a great need to understand the “human” side of online crime: Who are the cybercriminals? What motivates them? Where do they come from? How do they operate?

The Human Cybercriminal Project aims to pioneer research on these exciting issues. It brings a central conceptual approach to bear on the question of profit-driven cybercrime – how are the economic and social activities of online criminals governed when they are outside the control of the state? In the case of cybercriminals, the problem of a lack of trust is an even more complex concern than that faced by conventional criminals: not only are they all criminals but many online interactions by cybercriminals are ostensibly anonymous. They often don’t know who dealing with or how to find them if their deal goes awry... How do they overcome this challenge?

For details, see http://www.exlegi.ox.ac.uk/projects.html.

Date:	September 2016 - August 2018
Project leader:	Marina Jirotka

In an age of ubiquitous data collecting, analysis and processing, how can citizens judge the trustworthiness and fairness of systems that heavily rely on algorithms? News feeds, search engine results and product recommendations increasingly use personalization algorithms to help us cut through the mountains of available information and find those bits that are most relevant, but how can we know if the information we get really is the best match for our interests?

There is no such thing as a neutral algorithm. As anyone who has ever created something knows, even something as simple as a meal, the act of creating inevitably involves choices that will affect the properties of the final product. Despite this truism recommendations and selections made by algorithms are commonly presented to consumers as if they are inherently free from (human) bias and ‘fair’ because the decisions are ‘based on data’. During the recent controversy about possible political bias in Facebook’s Trending Topics for instance the focus was almost exclusively on the role of the human editors even though 95% or more of the news selection process is done by algorithms. Human judgements however are ultimately also based on data.

The EPSRC funded project “UnBias: Emancipating Users Against Algorithmic Biases for a Trusted Digital Economy” looks at all of the issues above in much greater detail. A large part of this work will include user group studies to understand the concerns and perspectives of citizens. UnBias aims to provide policy recommendations, ethical guidelines and a ‘fairness toolkit’ co-produced with young people and other stakeholders that will include educational materials and resources to support youth understanding about online environments as well as raise awareness among online providers about the concerns and rights of young internet users. The project is relevant for young people as well as society as a whole to ensure trust and transparency are not missing from the internet. The results will be widely disseminated to a variety of audiences ranging from academic peer-review journals to community groups of interest such as secondary schools and youth clubs.

Learn more at http://unbias.wp.horizon.ac.uk

Date:	October 2011 - March 2015
Project leader:	Sadie Creese, Michael Goldsmith

This project aims towards a rich understanding of identity, encompassing aspects that we reveal both in the real world and in the cyber world. The fusion of cyber and real world measures is what makes this project challenging, exciting and timely. The result will be a more complete and dynamic picture of who someone is, enabling greater input into the identity decision.

More details at:
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/superidentity/

Date:	October 2011 - March 2014
Project leader:	Sadie Creese, Michael Goldsmith

The TEASE project is developed innovative tools to assist users in assessing the confidence they should place in the reliability of the information that is presented to them.

More details at:
http://tease-project.info/

Date:	October 2013 - September 2013
Project leader:	Ian Brown

This project considers the challenges of having robot proxies in public spaces. It will conduct experiments exploring trust in shared social settings, and develop a framework for understanding the impact of privacy / anonymity in human-robot interactions.

More details at:
http://gow.epsrc.ac.uk/NGBOViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/L00416X/1