Assuming Identities Online: description, development and ethical implications.

对严重罪行的预防性警务工作有时涉及欺骗和伪装。一个恰当的例子是防止由恋童癖者培养和点对点网络引起的虐待，在点对点网络中讨论和交换儿童的虐待图像。警察调查人员的预防手段包括假定现有社区成员和儿童的身份，以便进行干预和逮捕。这一过程往往有紧迫的时间限制- -调查人员在引起其目标的怀疑之前，只有一个很小的窗口来了解和假定所涉身份。目前，秘密在线调查人员接受的培训，虽然广泛地了解了语言学理论，但仍需要发展。此外，由于时间的限制，半自动化系统协助身份假设将是对调查工具包的重要贡献。迄今为止，采用计算方法分析在线交流的研究绝大多数集中在计算机中介话语（CMD）的结构元素上，如排版、正字法和其他低级特征，很少或根本没有注意到嵌入这些特征的社会情境话语。法医学语言学中心（CFL）是阿斯顿大学的一个研究中心，结合了前沿研究和调查法医学实践；Lexegesys是一家咨询和技术公司，专门从事数据分析解决方案的开发和实施；最近合作了一个项目，成功地自动化了识别和提取低级特征的过程，目的是在Twitter上下文中确定未知文本的作者身份。然而，CMD已被广泛认为在许多语言层面上起作用，如意义、互动和社会实践。在计算语言领域之外，CMD的特征被理解为用户在特定背景下构建身份时所利用的资源，并且CMD本身构成了社会实践，而不是简单地由社会变量塑造。采用归纳方法，也就是说，感兴趣的现象，而不是特定的理论范式，是主要的，本研究旨在弥合网络身份话语建构的复杂理论与分析在线通信的计算方法之间的差距。CFL和Lexegesys目前正在进行一项小规模的研究，旨在解决自动化在语用和互动层面的挑战，努力实现间接言语行为和话题管理等现象的半自动识别。这项工作非常实用，并以现实世界的警察调查为依据。作为该项目的合作伙伴，西米德兰兹郡警察技术情报开发部至关重要地致力于提供数据和操作见解。除了经验应用语言学之外，该项目还对软件进行概念验证工作，这将有助于在警务中道德地使用假定的身份。此外，它将涉及对在线身份执行中复杂的警务和安全的道德和政策影响的评估。这项建议以前曾提交给人权委员会，现根据他们的建议在此重新提交。

Preventive policing of serious crime sometimes involves deception and disguise. A case in point is the prevention of abuse arising from paedophile grooming and peer to peer networks where abuse images of children are discussed and exchanged. The preventive techniques by police investigators include assuming identities of existing community members, and of children, so that interventions and arrests can be made. Often, there are tight time constraints associated with this process - investigators have only a small window in which to learn and assume the identity in question before arousing suspicion in their target(s). The training that undercover online investigators currently receive, although broadly informed by linguistic theory, is in need of development. Furthermore, the time constraints mean that a semi-automated system to assist in identity assumption would represent a crucial contribution to the investigative toolkit.Research taking a computational approach to the analysis of online communications has thus far focussed overwhelmingly on the structural elements of Computer Mediated Discourse (CMD), such as typography, orthography and other low level features, with little to no attention being paid to the socially situated discourses in which these features are embedded. The Centre for Forensic Linguistics (CFL) - a research centre within Aston University combining leading-edge research and investigative forensic practice - and Lexegesys - a consultancy and technology company specialising in developing and implementing data analysis solutions, recently collaborated on a project that was successful in automating the process of identification and extraction of low-level features for the purposes of attributing authorship of unknown texts within the context of Twitter. Yet CMD has widely been recognized to operate on a number of linguistic levels, such as those of meaning, of interaction, and of social practice. Outside of the computational linguistic field, the characteristic features of CMD are understood as resources that users draw on in the construction of identities in particular contexts, and CMD constitutes social practice in and of itself rather than simply being shaped by social variables. Taking an inductive approach, which is to say that the phenomena of interest, rather than a specific theoretical paradigm, are primary, this research aims to bridge the gap between complex theories of the discursive construction of online identities on the one hand, and computational approaches to analysing online communications on the other. A small scale study CFL and Lexegesys are currently engaged in is addressing the challenges of automation at the pragmatic and interactional levels, working towards the semi-automated identification of phenomena such as indirect speech acts and topic management. The work is extremely practical and is informed by real-world police investigations. A partner in the project, the West Midlands Police, Technical Intelligence Development Unit is crucially committed to providing data and operational insights. In addition to empirical applied linguistics, the project conducts proof-of-concept work for software that will assist in an ethical use of assumed identities in policing. Furthermore, it will involve an assessment of the ethical and policy implications for policing and security of complexity in online identity performance. This proposal was previously submitted to the AHRC, and is resubmitted here on their advice.