Protecting Police Officers and Their Families Online: Social Media Harms, Risk Mitigation and Support Needs

• In Event: Preventing and Addressing Cyber Victimization

Abstract

Increasingly, police officers in public-facing roles are subject to online threats and harassment targeted at them as individuals. This also impacts their family members, be it because they are also directly targeted or because they have to live with fears and/or accept restrictions to their online participation in order to safeguard their police family members. We were expecting that in an age of near ubiquitous social media use such restrictions can lead to friction within policing families.
We report on 2 semi-structured interview studies (part of the wider project “3PO – Protecting public facing professionals and their dependents online”) investigating experiences of online harm and use of protective measures for 1) 49 police officers, 2) 12 spouses 3)36 teenage children of police officers, across 6 UK police forces. A number of vulnerabilities, risks and threats as well as risk mitigation strategies were identified. Support and training needs will be discussed.
The 3PO project also created a vulnerability self-assessment app for police officers and their families which will be briefly presented.

Authors

• Lasara Kariyawasam, University of Oxford

• Adam Bates, Sheffield Hallam University

• Katrin Mueller-Johnson, University of Oxford

• Kate Whitfield, Sheffield Hallam University

• Petra Saskia Bayerl, Sheffield Hallam University