The eGirls team is expanding and launching a new $2.5 million seven year partnership funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

The project will use a highly innovative approach to examine privacy, online behavioural targeting and cyberbullying through an equality lens. The economic model behind e-commerce – disclosure of information in exchange for services – leads youth to drop terabytes of data (often unknowingly) as they go about their daily lives. This data is used in a wide variety of ways, including behavioural marketing that shapes attitudes and behaviours; and profiling, which — as the eGirls Project demonstrated — can also reinforce mainstream stereotypes and lead to discrimination and cyberbullying.

Our new partnership of research and policy institutes, policymakers, educators, community organizations, youth and scholars from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong will generate much-needed new knowledge, give youth a voice in best practices, inform digital economic policies, especially with respect to privacy, and reinvigorate the cyberbullying debate by identifying evidence-based policies that promote healthy relationships and respect for equality online.

We’re particularly proud to be one of only 15 projects chosen by SSHRC from a highly competitive pool of over 100 researchers from across the country.