Enabling and Protecting Children’s Digital Identity with Nicky Hickman and Rachel O’Connell, TrustElevate – Podcast Episode 70

In episode 70, Nicky Hickman and Dr. Rachel O’Connell of TrustElevate discuss children’s digital identity – why this is so important, what challenges are currently being faced and what solutions need to be put into place to help protect children with the digital landscape. "There is a clear and present need for regulatory drivers to enhance children's safety online to ensure the companies are held accountable and are transparent in terms of the measures that they take to keep kids safe online. And critical and central to that is digital identity." Nicky Hickman is a freelance product & innovation manager based in the UK with international experience in APAC, Europe and Africa. With a background in telecoms she has worked with digital identity and personal data markets for ~20 years researching, designing and delivering multi-channel large scale CIAM services and strategies for clients including Vodafone, O2, GSMA, Barclays, Sky and Verizon. In the last 5 years she has been a contributor to open-source communities at the Sovrin Foundation, where she served as a Trustee and Chair of the Identity for All Council, and at Trust over IP Foundation where she is a co-chair of the Human Experience Working Group. Nicky is also an active researcher and is an industry contributor and guest lecturer at the University of Jyväskylä’s Blockchain & Digital Identity Start-Up Lab in Finland. Find Nicky on LinkedIn. Dr Rachel O’Connell is a leading expert on online child safety. Her PhD examined paedophile activity online and the implications for investigative strategies. Rachel set up the first UK Internet safety centre in 2000; she was Chief Security office for Bebo a social networking platform 2006-2010. Rachel is the founder of TrustElevate, author of a technical standard published by the British Standards Institution that describes how to verify the age band a person belongs in a privacy-preserving, secure manner. Find Rachel on LinkedIn. We’ll be continuing this conversation on Twitter using #LTADI – join us @ubisecure!