Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 6 December 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs

Cybersecurity for Children and Young Adults: Discussion (Resumed)

9:30 am

Ms Niamh Sweeney:

Most of our efforts in the area of artificial intelligence are focused on types of behaviour and types of accounts rather than a particular demographic. For example, as I said at the outset, fake accounts tend to be behind a lot of the kind of behaviour that violates our policies. We have tried to introduce more automated detection in the area of fake accounts because, generally speaking, in certain instances at least, they tend to display the same types of patterns. Once those patterns are detected, finding one fake account can lead to fanning out and finding others. There is no specific targeting of certain demographics or profiling based on nationality, location, age or things like that. It is more about the types of behavioural activity. It is hard for me to comment on the type of post the Chairman is referencing without seeing a specific example. If it is captured by our bullying policies which, as Ms Cummiskey has said, are really expansive, it would come down based on a report which would highlight one of those particular policies. Perhaps it would be best to follow up afterwards. I am kind of literal sometimes and need to see something to understand it.