SPRITE+ is an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Digital Economy NetworkPlus, that stimulates new directions for research relevant to security, privacy, identity, and trust.

Professor Jill Marshall (Department of Law and Criminology) has been awarded an EPSRC, SPRITE+ research grant. The SPRITE+ Grant followed intensive ‘sandpits’ in July 2021, innovative ways of bringing interdisciplinary teams to work together on cutting edge digital vulnerabilities research.

The title of the project is: ‘First RespondXR: Digital vulnerability of immersive training for first responders’. It runs from 1 November 2021 - 28 February 2022. More information on the project is available here.

In their role as first responders, police services in England provide immediate assistance to individuals at a scene of emergency and/or potential criminal event. However, the significant reduction in policing resources since 2010 has demanded officers to work more broadly in response to the diverse range of incidents. Therefore, training needs and settings must be not only varied, but efficient as well as effective.

Extended Reality (XR), including both virtual and augmented reality, is becoming prominent in many sectors for training and operations. Yet, in the rush to exploit the benefits of XR for immersive training, the potential digital vulnerabilities that may be exposed have yet to be properly examined.

RespondXR will consequently, for the first time, map the vulnerability space (i.e., its social, technical, legal, ethical risks and impacts), from the perspective of (a) those delivering the training, (b) the first responders who will be undertaking this training, and (c) the technical teams bringing forward new training methodologies in XR. The project will explore the socio-technical challenges posed by the adoption of this technology, providing the foundations for further research on the safe, secure, and ethical use of immersive training technology for enhancing the response of policing in England.

Other project team members are listed below:

• Dr Leonie Tanczer (PI), Lecturer in International Security and Emerging Technologies, University College London;
• Professor David McIlhatton (Co-I), Professor of Protective Security and Resilience and Director of the Institute for Peace and Security, Coventry University;
• Dr Mark McGill (Co-I), Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction, University of Glasgow;
• Dr Lena Podoletz (Co-I), Research Fellow in Emotional AI and Smart Cities, University of Edinburgh.