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Digital technologies are becoming increasingly important for environmental defenders. Such technologies offer them possibilities to speak out and/or take action, but also increase the (digital) risks they face as a result of their (online) involvement. Recently, significant concerns have been raised about the use of various forms of online and technology-facilitated forms of harassment or 'digital intimidation' against environmental defenders. This raises the question of whether environmental defenders are adequately protected by the current legal framework. To assess this, it is essential to first understand the phenomenon of digital intimidation. This paper therefore aims to identify the 'core' components and characteristics relevant to digital intimidation to enable further legal qualification and analysis. As such, we propose a digital intimidation navigation tool that can facilitate a more sophisticated understanding of the different tactics used, as well as a fine-grained analysis of the existing legal framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has published its much-awaited General Comment No. 25 on children's rights in the digital environment in 2021. Much of the conversations since its adoption have centred on how General Comment No. 25 influences State behaviours in the western world or globally. Little attention has been given as to what General Comment No. 25 means for children's right to privacy in Africa. This article seeks to explore the role of General Comment No. 25 in clarifying States' obligations in respect of children's rights to privacy and data protection in the digital era on the African continent. In doing so, this article first contextualises General Comment No. 25 in the broader context of the United Nations human rights system and analyses its recommendations on children's right to privacy. Second, the article examines children's right to privacy in Africa and analyses the specific features of the African human rights system that influence the understanding of this right. Finally, the article illuminates certain child-specific privacy and data protection measures that are being or have been included or discussed in the law-making processes and policy debates in a selection of African countries and links them to both General Comment No. 25 and the socio-cultural context of the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arms race dynamics are a common outcome of host–parasite coevolution. While they can theoretically be maintained indefinitely, realistic arms races are expected to be finite. Once an arms race has ended, for example due to the evolution of a generalist-resistant host, the system may transition into coevolutionary dynamics that favour long-term diversity. In microbial experiments, host–parasite arms races often transition into a stable coexistence of generalist-resistant hosts, (semi-)susceptible hosts, and parasites. While long-term host diversity is implicit in these cases, parasite diversity is usually overlooked. In this study, we examined parasite diversity after the end of an experimental arms race between a unicellular alga (Chlorella variabilis) and its lytic virus (PBCV-1). First, we isolated virus genotypes from multiple time points from two replicate microcosms. A time-shift experiment confirmed that the virus isolates had escalating host ranges, i.e., that arms races had occurred. We then examined the phenotypic and genetic diversity of virus isolates from the post-arms race phase. Post-arms race virus isolates had diverse host ranges, survival probabilities, and growth rates; they also clustered into distinct genetic groups. Importantly, host range diversity was maintained throughout the post-arms race phase, and the frequency of host range phenotypes fluctuated over time. We hypothesize that this dynamic polymorphism was maintained by a combination of fluctuating selection and demographic stochasticity. Together with previous work in prokaryotic systems, our results link experimental observations of arms races to natural observations of long-term host and parasite diversity. Graphical Abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of strong legislative frameworks to guarantee children's privacy, agency and safety in the digital environment has been emphasised by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in its most recent general comment. Both the EU and China, who(se Member States) are Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, have adopted their own legislative frameworks for protecting children's rights to privacy and data protection in recent years. This article compares how these two distinct legislative frameworks safeguard these rights. The analysis focuses on the constitutional protection as well as on a comparison of the legislation that is currently in place, such as the General Data Protection Regulation in the EU and the Personal Information Protection Law, the Provisions on Online Protection of Children's Personal Data and other relevant regulations in China. More specifically, the article zooms in on the responsibilities emerging from these regulatory frameworks for private companies and platforms that process children's personal data. It ultimately aims to draw conclusions as to whether and how the child's rights to privacy and data protection are protected in different parts of the world where children use similar commercial apps and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Irish Data Protection Commission fined TikTok 345 million Euros for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regarding children's personal data. It reports the investigation, initiated in September 2021, involved supervisory authorities and the European Data Protection Board. It highlights TikTok's processing activities and its vast E.U. user base, particularly among children.

A socio-legal analysis of the UK governance regime for data collected from children at school for teaching and learning contrasts the government-mandated data collection by schools to inform educational policy and planning with data processed and shared with third parties by commercial EdTech providers. We find the former is effectively governed by the government's 'Five Safes Framework' with some problematic exceptions. By contrast, EdTech providers process a growing volume of personal data under the DPA 2018/UK GDPR with a looser enforcement regime. While schools have few mechanisms and insufficient expertise or resources to hold EdTech providers accountable for processing children's data, EdTech providers have considerable latitude in interpreting the law. Consequently, and paradoxically, regulations governing (mostly) deidentified data used for public purposes are more systematically enforced than those governing personal (identifiable) data used for public and commercial purposes. We conclude with recommendations so that education data can serve children's best interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many educational presentations continue to straightforwardly frame both consensual and nonconsensual intimate image distribution among youth as child pornography. This continues despite the availability of a purpose-built offence for nonconsensual intimate image distribution (NCIID) that was designed, in part, to avoid the use of child pornography offences in NCIID cases and the existence of a "private use exception" that limits the applicability of child pornography offences in cases of consensual "sexting" among youth. This sometimes inaccurate and, I argue, inappropriate focus on child pornography offences is especially common in presentations by police and public safety personnel. Through a discursive analysis of Canadian case law and a case study of educational approaches provided by the CyberScan unit, I find that the continued dominance of a child pornography framing is based on both genuine misconceptions of how these offences apply to intimate image distribution and intentional misrepresentations of the legal context. Résumé: De nombreuses présentations éducatives continuent d'assimiler à la fois la distribution consensuelle et non consensuelle d'images intimes chez les jeunes à de la pornographie juvénile. Une qualification qui continue malgré l'existence d'une infraction spécialement désignée pour la distribution non consensuelle d'images intimes (DNCII) ayant été conçue, en partie, pour éviter le recours à des infractions de pornographie juvénile dans les affaires de DNCII, et malgré également une « exception d'usage privé » limitant l'applicabilité des infractions de pornographie juvénile dans les cas de « sexting » consensuel entre jeunes. Ce recours aux infractions de pornographie juvénile est parfois inexact, et même inapproprié selon moi, mais s'avère pourtant particulièrement courant dans les présentations des policiers et des acteurs de la sécurité publique. Grâce à une analyse discursive de la jurisprudence canadienne et à une étude de cas sur les approches pédagogiques fournies par l'unité CyberScan, je conclus que cette tendance à appréhender de telles actions à travers la lunette de la pornographie juvénile est fondée à la fois sur des incompréhensions quant à la façon dont ces infractions s'appliquent à la distribution d'images intimes et sur des représentations erronées intentionnelles du contexte juridique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]