In this digital age, where the world is at our fingertips, we have all been able to enjoy the latest perks of technology – be it in the world of social media, digital transactions, cool new gadgets, and the emerging field of AI. Amidst all these forms of engagement with technology, something else that is growing rapidly with it is – the breach of ethics and security risks.
As much as digitization invites innovation, it also invites vulnerabilities online. Due to this, it is increasingly important to stay updated with not just tools of innovation but practices to keep oneself safe online.
As frontliners of technology and regular users, we can view online security and safety from various dimensions:
- Understanding where vulnerabilities arise from and the various risk areas online.
- Understanding the laws surrounding one’s right to freedom of expression and right to privacy online.
- Familiarization with tools and adopting techniques to maintain a high level of personal and organizational security online.
Surrounding these three significant ideas, we, at Safer-I, organized a one-day event called ‘Internet Ethics and Online Security Workshop’ for young women in the technology field on Saturday, the 10th of December.
We asked our participants to arrive by 9, collect the required resources, and register their participation in the event. We were met with enthusiastic faces who quickly settled down and we began the first part of our workshop at 9.30 am.
The session started off with an introduction to the Safer-I campaign and what we have been doing. Nirisha Manandhar, our campaign lead, facilitated the session.
Our strategic lead, Suvu Shrestha, and our tech and innovation lead, Aayesha Shrestha then led the session on data security and digital hygiene for our participants. They shared the kind of safer internet practices that should be established to maintain digital privacy. They also urged the participants to question their digital media practices and find privacy concerns in their practices so as to better address them. They also provided a quick snapshot of the findings from our ongoing research on ‘Data Privacy and Data Collection Concerns in Social Media Platforms Among Emerging Adults in Nepal’.
We then moved on to our second session of the workshop ‘Legal Protection for Online Safety’ led by Adv. Prapoosa KC. She is a current Attorney of Law. She is also serving as a legal consultant for various NGOs and INGOs for research projects on legislation concerning gender-based violence. She led an engaging and thought-provoking session on what the current legislations for online-based violence and gender-based violence look like in Nepal including their limitations and pitfalls. She then encouraged the participants to share their online safety concerns and she addressed those concerns from a legal point of view.
Suvrat Ram Joshi led our final session on ‘Web Applications Security’. He is the product manager at John Snow Labs. He has over eight years of experience in various domains like Cyber Security, Healthcare, Finance, Compliance, etc.
The session started off with a quick activity that evaluated the strength of the password set by the participants. This was followed by an explanation of safer web security practices. A hands-on approach was taken to understanding more complex technical concepts like SQL injections, click-jacking, and cross-site scripting.
We ended your workshop with a quick feedback session. This feedback will be used to design better workshops in the future. We shared our gratitude to our venue partners. We then wrapped up the workshop by clicking pictures of the session to document the workshop process. Throughout the session, we also encouraged our participants to network with each other, the facilitators, and the organizers.
As the workshop comes to a successful end, we would like to extend our appreciation to the facilitators and participants for an engaging and fruitful session. The Safer-I team looks forward to organizing more such sessions in the future.