Protecting kids from cybercrime: Today’s generation is faced with a mass of dangers posed by the dark web. From grooming to suicide to cyberbullying and more, it’s growing extremely difficult for parents to protect their children from threats posed by different technologies. Cyber safety education gives students the knowledge and skills they need to stay safe online. According to a survey by the DQ Institute, 56 per cent of 8-12-year-olds were exposed to at least one cyber risk last year.
More alarmingly, research from CyberSafeKids shows that 55 per cent of children aged 8 to 12 did not tell a parent when bothered, confused or upset by harmful content or unsolicited contact, increasing to 63 per cent for 12-14-year-olds. Female founder, CEO and parent, Rena Maycock is looking to help parents through developing cutting edge technology to help detect and block harmful content online. We spoke to the CEO of Chirp and asked her about the risks of the internet, smartphone technology and the biggest threats facing kids in today’s online world.
First of all, can you tell us a bit about Chirp, what it is, and how it works exactly?
Chirp is soon to launch child-protection software for smartphones that both detects and blocks cyberbullying, grooming and, suicide and self-harm content in messaging apps. The goal of Chirp is to reduce the harmful effects of smartphone use on children and facilitate early detection and prosecution of child abusers by leveraging deep tech and AI. We have developed a patented operating system modification deep in the kernel level of the device.
This means we can access all incoming and outgoing data, even in encrypted apps. We compare that data against our AI-driven language models for harm and block anything that fails the test. So, if we detect your child has received a bullying message, we block it, save it to a locked file on their device and send you an alert inviting you to look at the message alongside your child so that you can deal with it together. In addition, Chirp has a feature whereby if children try to send a nude image, it will be stopped, and parents will receive a notification. It also provides alerts if children search for self-harm in a browser or social media app,
Where did the idea for Chirp stem from?
I came up with the idea when I started having my kids. My perception of the online world and safety had changed entirely. All I could see were headlines of children who had either been cyberbullied, groomed, sextorted or coerced and who had taken their own lives. I noticed the one common thread was that parents often didn’t realise there was a problem until it was far too late. Furthermore, I couldn’t believe no technology could deal with harmful user-generated content, so I researched the parental control market. I found parents had four main concerns when they handed their children a smartphone.
They were afraid they would access pornography or spend too much time online, be groomed or be cyberbullied. All of the parental control apps that I found were dealing with porn and access restrictions, but none were able to stop cyberbullying or grooming. That meant around fifty per cent of parents’ needs weren’t being met. As a commercial CEO (my previous job was as CEO of a group of radio stations) I thought, why is nobody doing this? And, as it turns out, it was because it’s hard!
In your opinion, what are the main challenges you faced in establishing child protection software?
Funding, funding and funding. Luckily, we have never experienced any pushback when I explain the actual product itself. As soon as we tell people what we are doing, they immediately want to use our technology for their child, grandchild, nephews and nieces. Chirp is a truly innovative, disruptive solution. It is deep-tech that requires significant research and development, which costs money. Irish institutional investors don’t want to invest in research and development; they want to invest in commercialisation when the risk is gone. It took us a total of five years to receive funding. We are currently in year two of a two-year development process building our award-winning, patented OS modification, embedded on-device. In 2025, we will pilot in the UK and Ireland and plan to open a Series A round of funding to commercialise the solution and scale rapidly towards the end of the year.
What are the biggest threats children face in today’s digital world?
There has to be a lack of safeguards at the social media level. Children are accessing content that is not appropriate for them on apps. They lack the emotional tools to process and cope with what they are seeing, and they also become targets for aggressors who can find them extremely easily, whether they are bullies or online child abusers. The bottom line is these services see our children as consumers, not children. I think that as long as legislation allows them to continue to see and treat kids this way, nothing will change.
You spoke about funding previously; how challenging was it to get investors on board?
We ended up being funded through the highly competitive Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund. In addition, we partnered with the UNESCO Chair for the prevention of bullying in schools and cyberspace, Prof. James O’Higgins Norman and the Anti-Bullying Research Centre at Dublin City University. We were awarded two-point-eight million euros to build the solution and officially launch it in 2025. Ultimately, we needed to raise co-funding to access the grant, and we ended up over-subscribing with a one-point six million euro raise, all from angels and no institutions.
Can you please tell us about some of the technologies involved?
There are two sides to our solution: kernel-level OS modification and deep-tech. This is
embedded on the smartphone at the point of manufacture, so it is a part of the device’s fabric. It is how we intercept messages and searches and compare them against our own bespoke small language models of harmful language, image and video across cyberbullying, grooming and suicide or self-harm. These language models are of particular importance and value as LLM’s tend to be generic in their focus. We have conducted a large public consultation inviting parents to submit verbatim examples of this content. With help from the GAA, IRFU, Swim Ireland and the NAPD, we now have the basis of models that will have human-level detection efficiency.
In your opinion, how important is it for female founders to learn and develop new skills in a digital age?
I think it’s so important. I’m not a technologist, but I’ve still managed to found and lead a technology startup, so it’s possible to learn on the job if you surround yourself with enough amazing people through whom you can learn by osmosis. Being in this space, I am encouraged by the initiatives that make girls aware of the possibilities available if they pursue a career in STEM. When I was at school, our career guidance counsellors would tell us that we would make good secretaries, nurses or teachers. The idea of being a computer scientist, a CEO or an entrepreneur was alien to us. In rare cases like mine, the limitations society might place on me as a female was dissolved with an upbringing that cultivated confidence and equality. I was lucky, though.
As a female founder, what advice would you give to women who would love to set up their own tech company?
Do it today! Waste no more time. There is never a good time to start a business, so take the leap. Go to the opening of every envelope. Make friends and build your network because you are playing catch-up. Feel free to ask for help. You will be surprised at who might give you an hour for a coffee. Pick everyone’s brain, and never take no for an answer. There’s always a way.
Last but not least, what are Chirp’s ambitions for 2025?
We are in year two of a two-year development process building our award-winning, patented OS modification, which is embedded on devices by our pilots in Ireland and the UK. In 2025, we plan to open a Series A round of funding to commercialise the solution and scale rapidly towards the end of the year.
