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Simfin

online safety and digital citizenship specialist

Parents/Carers News

03 July 2023

A Scottish mum who received a heart transplant has told how her six-year-old daughter saved her life twice using a smart speaker.

Emma Anderson, from Robroyston in Glasgow, was 15 when she was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

From a young age, her daughter Darcey knew her mum had a "sore heart" and she could call for help on Alexa.

Now Darcey has used Alexa twice to raise the alarm when her 27-year-old mum has been unwell.

"I set up the Alexa so that if I passed out or was feeling unwell all she had to do was say, 'Alexa, call help', and that would call my mum who lives around the corner," Ms Anderson said.

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28 June 2023

Paedophiles are using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to create and sell life-like child sexual abuse material, the BBC has found.

Some are accessing the images by paying subscriptions to accounts on mainstream content-sharing sites such as Patreon.

The National Police Chief's Council said it was "outrageous" that some platforms were making "huge profits" but not taking "moral responsibility".

The makers of the abuse images are using AI software called Stable Diffusion, which was intended to generate images for use in art or graphic design.

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23 June 2023

Forget what you know about chatbots. My AI, which Snapchat launched in May, is so convincingly real, it feels like there's a real person on the other end.

My daughter chats with it several times a day about just about everything, from school stress to friend troubles.

"This [AI] is perfect. No mean things to say. No weirdness. Everything is just perfect and they're willing to learn about what I want. They said even though I'm not a real person I can still be a good friend and listen to talk about things you love," explained my daughter.

"I love My AI. It's my best friend."

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20 June 2023

Andrew Tate has been charged in Romania with rape, human trafficking and forming an organised crime group to sexually exploit women.

There are also separate charges still under investigation which could lead to a separate indictment, including money laundering and trafficking of minors.

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18 June 2023

The director of a documentary about the impact of deepfake porn has said she hopes her film will help people understand the immeasurable trauma it causes.

Rosie Morris's film, My Blonde GF, is about what happened to writer Helen Mort when she found out photos of her face had appeared on deepfake images on a porn site.

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16 May 2023

When Leif started playing Roblox, he began asking for robux - the game's currency - that allows players to upgrade their character or buy virtual items. So his grandparents gave him $200 (£159) Apple credit for Christmas.

"To my shock, he spent all of it in a matter of days," says Ms Ward. "After that, I gave him no more than $10 worth of robux per month. He quickly became frustrated and bored with the game."

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