Online abuse survivors ‘ignored and overlooked by tech companies’
- A group including online safety campaigners and survivors of internet grooming and exploitation have urged Rishi Sunak to strengthen the Online Safety Bill.
- They claim that ‘technology companies have ignored and overlooked the violence they face’.
- They are repeating calls for a mandatory violence against women and girls (VAWG) code of practice to be added in the Bill.
- The letter comes to the Prime Minister after a survey was commissioned by the NSPCC and suggested 79% of people think the Bill should take specific action to protect women and girls from violence and harmful content online.
- For the full story, please visit the Independent’s website.
Fake ChatGPT clones plague app stores
- Hundreds of fake ChatGPT apps have flooded app stores, with OpenAI struggling with their ‘GPT’ trademark.
- Privacy researcher Alex Kleber has said, “Most of these apps are nothing but cheap imitations or outright scams”.
- The trend has meant OpenAI has had to fast track a patent for the GPT acronym.
- For the full story, go to the Independent’s website.
The Preventative Curriculum in Schools and EOTAS Centres evaluation released
- The Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) have published a thematic evaluation of the preventative curriculum in schools and Education Other than at School (EOTAS) centres.
- It was commissioned by the Department of Education to undertake a thematic evaluation.
- They engaged with primary, post-primary and special schools and EOTAS centres to collate their views and experiences of delivering a preventative curriculum.
- There were 14,665 pupil responses to the questionnaire who provided their views on how well they are learning to make informed choices and keep themselves safe.
- For the full story, go to the ETINI website and access the report here.
More than 1,700 persistently absent pupils given no support
- Over 1,700 pupils who are persistently absent from Northern Irish schools have not been allocated support to help them attend school.
- According to the Education Authority, 1,751 pupils were on a waiting list for the Education Welfare Service (EWS) at the end of March 2023.
- One Belfast principal said “we approach the welfare service to provide specialist help when we feel as a school we can do no more.”
- The number of pupils who have not been allocated EWS is creating a “massive problem for schools”.
- For more, go to the BBC’s website.
