A study conducted between 2017 and 2024, found that four of major tech and social media companies, Google, Snap, Meta, and TikTok have made changes in policies, services, and products. In the measured period, the highest number of changes was registered in 2021, with Meta and TikTok accounting for the highest number of policy changes. In 2023, Meta made the highest number of changes in overall policies, 12 in total.

A study conducted between 2017 and 2024, found that four of major tech and social media companies, Google, Snap, Meta, and TikTok have made changes in policies, services, and products. In the measured period, the highest number of changes was registered in 2021, 42 changes in total. As this was the year Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) became effective, industry professionals believe it hugely impacted such a significant number of changes made by tech companies. Furthermore, 2023 saw 30 changes.

In 2023, the number of data compromises in the United States stood at 3,205 cases. Meanwhile, over 353 million individuals were affected in the same year by data compromises, including data breaches, leakage, and exposure. While these are three different events, they have one thing in common. As a result of all three incidents, the sensitive data is accessed by an unauthorized threat actor. Industries most vulnerable to data breaches Some industry sectors usually see more significant cases of private data violations than others. This is determined by the type and volume of the personal information organizations of these sectors store. In 2022, healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing were the three industry sectors that recorded most data breaches. The number of healthcare data breaches in the United States has gradually increased within the past few years. In the financial sector, data compromises increased almost twice between 2020 and 2022, while manufacturing saw an increase of more than three times in data compromise incidents. Largest data exposures worldwide In 2020, an adult streaming website, CAM4, experienced a leakage of nearly 11 billion records. This, by far, is the most extensive reported data leakage. This case, though, is unique because cyber security researchers found the vulnerability before the cyber criminals. The second-largest data breach is the Yahoo data breach, dating back to 2013. The company first reported about one billion exposed records, then later, in 2017, came up with an updated number of leaked records, which was three billion. In March 2018, the third biggest data breach happened, involving India’s national identification database Aadhaar. As a result of this incident, over 1.1 billion records were exposed.

The current document constitutes the 2nd version of the Data Management Plan of the EU funded project “RESET – Redesigning Equality and Scientific Excellence Together” (GA number 101006560). RESET is a Horizon 2020 Coordination and support action aiming to address the challenge of Gender Equality in research institutions in a diversity perspective, with the objective to design and implement a user-centered, impact-driven and inclusive vision of scientific excellence. The document outlines the overall approach to data management and defines the dataset, standards and metadata, data-sharing and archiving and preservation with regards to data that might be relevant in relation to the Horizon 2020 Open Research Data Pilot (OpenAIRE ) (EC, 2017) and FAIR Data Management guidelines (EC, 2016). The updated version of this document has been prepared in M17 as the project and research activities evolve to include new data, adjustments in the processes deployed, changes in consortium policies or any other issue regarding the data management of the project.

25 face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with high-level members of the UK’s foreign, defence, and security policy communities over 2015-17. Their identities are protected as part of the conditions under which they could speak candidly (and due to University and MoD ethics requirements). Key personnel from different government security agencies/departments were selected based on their knowledge of and experience with the design of security policy in the UK.

This project seeks to explain how security policy is developed in the UK, and suggest how relationships between different security and defence agencies can be improved. Security policies protect the borders of a nation-state and the security of its citizens and include military, economic, environmental and cybersecurity policies. These policies are designed and implemented by different agencies including military organizations, the intelligence community, and government departments such as the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Defence. We live in a fast-paced world where security threats may unexpectedly emerge from state actors such as the Syrian government, or non-state actors such as terrorist organizations. In this rapidly changing security environment it is paramount that national security policies be designed with enough flexibility so as to increase the likelihood of success. Important constraints can hinder this need for flexibility.

One such constraint is that members of the security and defence community might fear losing support, appearing as incompetent, or harming the reputation of their agency if they fail to implement a security policy they had previously committed to implementing. This can make them wary of significantly modifying a security policy, even in the face of important environmental changes such as budget cuts or the emergence of new information regarding the predicted effectiveness of its implementation. Such fear of domestic backlash likely played a role in American forces continuing to build up Iraqi security forces, even in the face of compelling evidence that suggested these forces were in fact fuelling sectarian conflict.

The first part of this study combines theories of foreign policy decision-making with the real-life experiences of high-level practitioners developed during residencies in key government departments and military organizations. The applicant will interviews elite members of the security and defence community in the UK involved in the design and implementation of security policies. Although the interviews will be carried out with members of the security and defence communities from the UK, the theory will be pertinent to describe the development of security policy globally.

In the second part of this study this theory will be tested using innovative experimental techniques to allow a detailed and empirically grounded exploration of the formation of security policy in democracies. Members of the security and defence community will be invited to participate in the online survey experiment. They will read about a hypothetical international security crisis, a policy that was initially proposed by a Whitehall agency, and whether the agency acted consistently or inconsistently regarding its implementation. They will then answer questions about their willingness to support the behaviour of the agency they read about. The answers of all participants will be analysed to determine if inconsistent behaviour is punished when it comes to the design and implementation of security policies.

Knowledge will be exchanged with members of the security and defence community during the entire study. This will culminate in the third and final part of this study. Findings will be presented at agencies that design and implement security policy in the UK, so each agency can learn more about how other agencies operate and how they view each other. Also, the applicant will organize a two-day practitioner workshop. Here members of the security and defence community, members of the broader civil society such as non-governmental organizations, and representatives of the media and pressure groups will discuss how actors not directly involved security policy play a role in shaping it indirectly.

The protected area estate increased by half a million hectares between 2015–2017 and now covers approximately 8.2% of Queensland