Research.tees.ac.uk

 An examination of gaming platform policies for law enforcement supportAbstractThe problems faced with regulating social media platforms are well known and documented, where frequent abuses of these platforms occur. In addition to this issue, the use of gaming platforms and their inbuilt communication facilities to carry out malicious acts including hate crimes and grooming is now an increasing concern. The regulation of gaming applications is now arguably a necessity with acts of criminal behaviour on these platforms starting to be reported. This work examines the terms and conditions, privacy policies and sign up and account validation processes for 40 gaming applications. The results are presented and examined, highlighting weaknesses in data retention periods, account validation and a lack of clarity with regards to law enforcement cooperation. This work aims to support law enforcement who are undertaking investigations involving these platforms. Keywords: Digital Forensics; Investigation; Gaming investigations; Crime1 IntroductionOnline communication has transformed the way in which society interacts with one another, and despite the many positive benefits this entails, naturally, there are associated abuses including instances of hate crime and grooming (Barnardos, 2015; BBC, 2013; 2018a). Often it is social media platforms which attract media attention for adverse behaviours. Their aim is to connect account holders world-wide, facilitating online interaction and communication between users, via the sharing of media or messages. It is up to each individual what they wish to share and to whom, and whether access is granted to public or private eyes only. Although various platforms require a user to be of a certain age in order to operate the platform (typically thirteen years old) essentially anyone can have a social media account in breach of policy if they circumvent existing account validation procedures (Horsman, 2017). These platforms encounter numerous regulatory issues and frequently host acts of online abuse (BBC, 2019a; The Guardian, 2019; The Telegraph, 2013; 2018a; The Independent, 2016a; 2017a; 2017b; 2018; The Telegraph, 2016; 2019a). Whilst the problems associated with social media platforms are well known and documented, the misuse of gaming platforms and gaming applications is less so, despite such events increasing in prevalence (see - The Independent, 2019a; 2019b; The Telegraph, 2018b; 2018c). This may be accredited to the rise of in-game chat services and the popularity of portable gaming through mobile devices. Game platforms now facilitate online communication to not just people known to the user but others playing globally. Although this can improve the in-gamer experience, it also provides opportunities for those wanting to commit communicative offences such as grooming by providing access to a wider audience. Recent incidents involving Epic Games’ ‘Fortnite’, Microsoft’s ‘Minecraft’ and Roblox Corporation’s ‘Roblox’ have been reported with multiple involving suspected grooming online via these platforms (BBC, 2017; 2018b; 2019b; 2019c; The Innocent Lives Foundation, n.d.; Thinkuknow.co.uk, n.d.).Where an alleged offence takes place, traceability becomes an issue. Often, law enforcement must work back from the position of a victim, utilizing all available information in order to try and identify those responsible for any offending behaviour. In some cases, a forensic investigation of the victims gaming platform may reveal information capable of identifying those responsible for abuse. However, where this is not possible, contact with the platform vendor may be required in order to query any retained information which may lead to the identification of an offender (see Figure 1). The success of this route depends on a number of factors including co-operation, account validation, data retention time limits and the types of data maintained. Figure 1: Routes of offender traceabilityThis work reviews the terms of use and privacy policies of 40 current mobile gaming applications to highlight key commentaries regarding data retention and account validation to support law enforcement when tracking online offenders on these platforms. For each game, age, sign-up processes, the collection of Internet Protocol (IP) data and storage and retention periods are reviewed to help those tasked with investigating incidents on these platforms to determine what is achievable in terms of identifying an offender. In 2017, Horsman undertook a similar review of social media platforms where this work aims to be supplementary by addressing the emerging trend of gaming platform misuse. To conclude, recommendations are provided to aid in the improvement of current policies and legislation to help increase awareness and safety online for children.2 In-game communication and the InternetThere are currently over four billion Internet users worldwide, equating to more than half of the global population (Statista, 2019a). As of 2018, the Office of National Statistics (2018) (ONS) estimates that 90% of households in Great Britain aone have Internet access. In addition, figures provided by Ofcom’s annual Media Use and Attitudes Report (2019) estimate that 92% of children aged five-fifteen and 52% of three-four year olds go online. In relation to online gaming, Ofcom (2019) report that 76% of twelve to fifteen year olds are playing games for approximately 13.25 hours a week, whilst 99% of the participants in the research go online for 20.5 hours a week.Currently, the video game market is a multi-billion pound industry, which continues to develop (Hebblethwaite, 2018). Within this expansion, the amalgamation of gaming and the Internet has allowed social interaction to progress via communication through chat sites, forums (.uk, n.d.) and in-game chats as avatars (Zhang, 2011). These features don’t just allow for communication to persons known to the player outside of the game but to strangers as well. The methods for communicating with one another are dependent on each platform or game where ChildLine (n.d) informs that chat can be through the game, forums, chat sites or console networks via a variety of means such as instant messenger (IM), headsets or video chats. The more popular or addictive a game is, the longer a child will play, leading to a lengthier online presence for contact to be initiated and maintained. A study by Ofcom (2017) found that 15% of 8-11 year olds and 19% of 12-15 years olds had chatted to people they only knew through the game. Research conducted by Chang et al. (2014) found that participants’ frequency of online gaming was associated with ‘online sexual solicitation’, concluding that the higher the presence in gaming the more likely to be a victim of grooming. In addition, Sharp (2018) and Quayle et al. (2014) emphasise that gaming platforms are settings that allow for sexual offenders to have contact with numerous victims concurrently. Statista (2019c) highlight mobile gaming as the platform of choice for global games, in preference to the likes of consoles or PC. There are currently just over 1.7 billion mobile game users worldwide, with this set to increase to 2.1 billion by 2023 (Statista, 2019b). The mobile app market is dominated by iOS for Apple users and Google Play for Android users where in 2018 the app downloads for both stores exceeded 113 billion (Tobin, 2018). As with console games, in the UK age group suitability guidelines are provided by Pan European Game Information (PEGI) for Android apps (, n.d.). However Google Play advises in their Help Centre that not all apps are rated and the ratings are the ‘responsibility of the app developers’ (Google Play Help, n.d.). Alternatively, the applications within the App Store for Apple are rated via a ‘different criteria’ (The Telegraph, 2019c).Ofcom’s report (2019) highlights an increase in online game playing between five and fifteen year olds from ‘two-thirds in 2017’ to three-quarters in 2018, once again with increasing frequency dependent on age group. The report indicates that 38% of age 8 to eleven and 58% of twelve to fifteen’s are using features within the online games to talk to others. Of these children, one-fifth of the younger age range and a quarter of the older communicate with people they only know through the platform and not the outside world. This kind of interaction potentially increases the chance of children encountering incidents of online abuse. According to Chandrasekharan et al. (2017) 40% of users have reported harassment over the Internet. Yet, Wong, Cheung and Xiao (2016) found that most online abuse goes unreported to law enforcement agencies, as well as to parents, with victims ignoring the issue as they believe ‘nothing could be done to help’.2.1 Regulatory ChallengesRegulating over two billion gamers (Hebblethwaite, 2018) can be a complex and difficult undertaking. Not solely because of the vast amount of users to oversee but the anonymity that comes with online activity, especially when trying to police child sexual abuse in cyberspace (Martellozzo, 2012). Additionally to the issue of concealment, the rapidity of Internet and technological development is difficult for the police to mirror let alone be a step ahead of (Martellozzo, 2012). With each online advancement, a person is required to be aware of it, understand it and then train and implement others, nationwide in the case of policing. Additional to the police constabularies across the United Kingdom, there are government funded police departments that are set up to deal with Internet sex offences, such as the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Command within the National Crime Agency (NCA).Police in the United Kingdom (UK) are now instigating both proactive strategies as well as reactive and proactive for combatting online child solicitation. Proactive policing tactics aim to tackle crime before or as it is happening; unlike reactive policing which focuses on crimes that have already occurred (The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018). The most common proactive tactic is undercover investigators posing as children. However, there are various principles that must be in place when doing so, as not to breach the human rights of someone who is under surveillance. An example of a principle is that of not acting as an ‘agent provocateur’. An agent provocateur incites the directive of a crime when posing as a minor by suggesting a meeting or sex. By doing so, the undercover investigator is instigating a crime that otherwise may not have been committed (Martellozzo, 2015). However, this form of policing is limited in its abilities due to the expanding nature of the Internet. Cautious sex offenders, who are aware of this kind of policing, want confirmation of who they are speaking to either via pictures or webcams, which the police may be unable to do (Martellozzo, 2015). However, the HMIC (2017) reports that police senior leaders are without the adequate digital knowledge and not recruiting enough officers with the appropriate skills to carry out online offence investigations or adapt technological requirements to suit needs.To effectively police gaming platforms arguably requires support from the platforms themselves. This includes the implementation of effective measures which prevent users operating unattributable accounts which offer the ability to abuse the platform and commit offences. Accountability is a key issue where platforms must collect and retain data which allows accounts to be accurately identified. To be effectively policed the right types of data must be retained by a platform, and for a suitable amount of time to allow the sometimes lengthy legal processes to take place in order to acquire such data for review. To determine the current state of gaming platforms for the purpose of policing, their terms and conditions and privacy policies have been examined.3 Game policy reviewThis work has examined the terms and conditions and privacy policies for the following 40 games:Roblox, Playerunknowns Battlegrounds (PUBG) MOBILE, World of Cubes Survival Craft, Planet of Cubes Survival Craft, Hotel Hideaway: Virtual Party, Habbo - Virtual World, World of Kings, Modern Combat 5, Modern Combat Versus, Arcane Legends, Rules of Survival, Dawn of Isles, Hide N Seek: Mini Games, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach, Dragon City Mobile, Monster Legends, 3D MMO Villagers and Heroes, The Wolf: Online RPG Simulator, Guns of Glory, Tales of Wind, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links, Evil Lands: MMO RPG, Game of Thrones: Conquest?, School of Dragons, Cat and Dog Online: Multiplayer Kitten and Puppy Sim, Farm Animal Family Online - Multiplayer Simulator, Horse Quest Online 3D Simulator - My Multiplayer Pony Adventure, Forge of Empires: Build a City, Grepolis: Divine Strategy MMO, Brutal Age: Horde Invasion, Pixel Starships?, TRANSFORMERS: Forged to Fight, Blobz .IO: Online MMO Games, Castle Clash: War Empire, Wild City, War and Order, MovieStarPlanet, Cubic Castles - Sandbox MMO, Nova Empire.The games were chosen as a result of their popularity; searching keywords within the App Store such as:‘MMO’;‘multiplayer online games’;‘multiplayer games; In addition, selection criteria was supplemented by performing the following Google searches: ‘open world multiplayer ios games’; ‘ios games with global chat’;‘game apps with chat rooms’; ‘games with built in chat features’;’best free ios multiplayer games’;‘best free ios games to make friends’; ‘best free ios games to connect with others’. To download applications from the ‘App Store’ on an Apple device an ‘Apple ID’ is required. To create an account to form an ‘Apple ID’ first and last names, date of birth, address, email address and telephone number are required, however the only information verified is the email address to which a code is sent that must be entered to proceed with the account set up. Once confirmed, the account allows for the access and download of applications from the platform. All games were accessed through whichever means they required i.e. guest log-ins, accounts created, social media etc. and played to establish that all had in-game chat features accessible within, to connect to other unknown users. Table 1 provides a breakdown of the notable components within the terms and conditions and privacy policies for each gaming platform.Table 1: Information regarding forty Apple iOS App Store gaming applications and their privacy policies and terms of use. (DUE TO SIZE THE TABLE HAS BEEN SUBMITTED AS A SEPARATE FILE).4 Analysis of resultsFollowing the results presented in Table 1, it is necessary to present a discussion of the key findings.4.1 AgeThe collation of data found that out of the 40 games reviewed, the majority were equally aimed at (explicitly stated in the App Store as being targeted at the demographic of) the age groups of nine years old and over (16 of 40 games) and twelve years old and older (16 of 40 games). The further two existing demographics were seventeen years and above (4 of 40 games) and four years and above (4 of 40 games). To emphasise, four games are explicitly designed for the demographic of four years old and above, where inbuilt chat facilities are available (Planet of Cube Survival Craft; Dragon City Mobile; School of Dragons and Movie Star Planet - three of which maintain no effective account validation). All applications submitted to the App Store are required to go through an approval process by App Review (Developer., 2019). Part of the guidelines is to submit an app rating as part of the ‘platform version information property’ (Help., 2019), which involves the developer selecting an age recommendation that they deem appropriate in line with Apple’s rules. These age ratings are Apples own ‘classification system’ (Wright, 2017) and so not ratified by any external independent boards.Despite the developers setting the age ratings themselves, not all of the privacy policies replicate such advisories. In particular the games developed by Foxie Games such as Farm Animal Family Online – Multiplayer Simulator and Cat and Dog Online: Multiplayer Kitten and Puppy Sim are rated as a download age of 9+, however the privacy policy issued by the developer for those specific games, stipulates that their platforms or apps are not to be used by anyone under the age of twelve in the United States of America or sixteen for anyone who lives in the European Union. Yet in spite of this, the games do not require any form of account sign-up procedure, only asking to select whether the user is twelve years or under, or thirteen years plus (a ‘self-declaration or age’). This selection then takes the game player through into the game without verification.4.2 Sign-up ProcessTo confirm, where Table 1 states ‘No’ in the ‘Is there an account sign up process?’ column, this means either a non-validated guest login option is available or the game proceeds straight to game content. 29 the applications analysed did not require any form of log in to grant access, either via selecting a ‘guest account’ option or the game opening straight into game play. By having the ‘guest account’ option it allows for users to operate largely anonymously, granting potential offenders the ability to operate with a greater degree of anonymity as limited sign-up information is available for traceability purposes (potentially leaving only IP address content as the main useful information source). Not only does this pose an obvious problem for those in law enforcement as there may be limited information available for offender identification purposes, it also limits any developer regulation within in-game content. Where being able to access the game and chat services through a guest account, the user is often assigned a randomly generated username (in 20 of the 29 games offering guest access), or allowed you to create a presumed temporary one.Of the 40 apps, 26 offered multiple sign up processes (therefore in some cases where a ‘guest account’ option existed, a user could also opt to log in via a different method) which could be utilised to access the game such as Game Centre and social media accounts if the user chooses to enter the platform in this way. Almost half of the apps included accessibility through Game Centre (40%) or Facebook (42.5%). The following is a breakdown of the number of applications which offered multiple access options. 12 games had two options for access.8 games had three options for access.4 games had four options for access.2 games had five options for access.12 out of 40 apps that had the option of inputting an email address, however only three sent a code and one sent a password with the requirement that it had to be inputted to allow the user to continue with the account sign up. It can be reasoned that the request for email addresses for the remaining eight is redundant as this validation process has arguably not completed. To further explore, for those that did not require activation codes, a non-active email address was inputted and access was still granted. As a result, offender traceability is impacted and in some instances the verification process is flawed (Horsman, 2017).Six applications gave the option for in-game accounts to be created, whereby three requested the input of a verification code sent via email to access the game play through that account. These three apps (World of Kings, Clash of Clans and Boom Beach) were the only applications out of all that were analysed, that had a prerequisite for a code sent through email to be entered to access the entertainment if creating a game account. One of the applications where an in-game account could be created was Planet of Cubes Survival Craft, whereby the password for the account would be sent to the email address provided. This was the only game where this process was in place.14 applications had a single avenue of access. 12 of these applications required no information to be inputted in order to access the game. In four of these 12 applications, the user has to specify if they are twelve years old or younger or thirteen years plus (a self-declaration of age). For these 12 applications, no account verification is carried out. 4.3 IP information34 of the games collect IP information ‘automatically’, as outlined in their privacy policies. Six games do not (or do not state they do, so their position is undetermined). There is also an additional level of complexity where some games describe collection purposes in certain scenarios. For example, the privacy policy for Horse Quest Online 3D Simulator - My Multiplayer Pony Adventure states that it does not collect data that could identify a user whereas Tales of Wind specifies that IP details will be collected if playing using an account only, guest accounts will not collect or store any personal information except device ID. It is assumed that this may be a regulatory issue as it is assumed that those who may be intending to operate maliciously on the platform are likely to do so without creating a valid account (i.e. through guest methods).Both The Wolf: Online RPG Simulator and Evil Lands: MMO RPG both do not specifically indicate any collection of IP addresses, however they also do not state that they do not collect IP information and have therefore their stance on IP collection been categorised in Table 1 as ‘unknown’. As well as these latter two games, Blobz .IO: Online MMO Games and Wild City are regarded as ‘unknown’ as their privacy policies do not specify what information is gathered, if any at all.4.3.1 IP retention periods27 out of 34 apps that collate IP information do not stipulate how long data is retained on their servers, with terms used such as 'no longer than necessary' (droplr, 2019) or 'reasonable period of time' (Kabam, 2019). This creates regulatory uncertainty, as law enforcement seeking disclosure of such logs are unable to determine whether this information even exists prior to making a disclosure request. It also makes the investigation of historic offences difficult as a cut-off point in which the information is no longer available cannot be identified. As a result, it is forceable that resources may be wasted in making requests which could be prevented by stating a defined retention period. The remaining seven games in this category either keep information for the entirety of the game usage or for as long as the account is active. Thereafter, the data is erased either following an account deletion request, whereby some identify a grace period of either fifteen or thirty days, or after a year, in the case of four apps (Playerunknowns Battlegrounds (PUBG) MOBILE, Dragon City Mobile, Monster Legends, Brutal Age: Horde Invasion), if the game is shut down. As an anomaly, Nova Empire advises that the information they collect automatically will be retained for up to twenty-four months with it then being stored ‘in aggregate’ (Nova.gamebeartech, n.d.), it’s terms are less specific regarding other information and account deletion. Further, MovieStarPlanet instructs that its storage will remain until twelve months after inactivity within the game.4.4 Chat Services23 of the 40 privacy policies discuss information relating to in-game chat facilities and interaction with other service users. Therefore 17 applications do not address in-game chat in their policy documents in any way.Of the 17 out of the 23 games which do reference in-game chat, these policies inform that they may or will collect and store chat postings to other gamers, the remainder (six of the 23 in this category) differ in their terms. S3. (n.d.) advises that chats on their platform will be monitored and moderated and Cat and Dog Online: Multiplayer Kitten and Puppy Sim and Farm Animal Family Online - Multiplayer Simulator simply counsel that public postings in their games is 'not protected by our privacy notice and we have no control over the information you provide to other users' (Foxie Games, 2019a; Foxie Games 2019b). Alternatively Arcane Legends stipulate that to connect with other users in the players region then location services are required to be turned on. Similarly, Roblox inform that their chat features may be turned on or off and they have provided a ‘Restricted Account Mode’ (Roblox, 2019) designed to limit access and communications. The developer of the games Modern Combat 5 and Modern Combat Versus, Gameloft, is the only to detail in its policy that information about the user or users that you are contacting will also be collated. This could be beneficial to law enforcement if they were able to access this information during investigations as a way to gather further evidence from other victims, protect other children who may have been targeted and perhaps offender to other offender conversations, which could link to other cases of online abuse. To stress, only two of the 40 games explicitly state they collect and retain information regarding who a user has chatted to in their game. Akin to works previously discussed by Suler (2004) and Wu, Lin and Shih (2017) 24 out of 40 of the apps allowed ‘invisibility’ by enabling observation without interaction. Communications between other online users were visible without them being able to see who is available to chat. Without introducing who is currently online in the forum it is possible to monitor others, which can be argued can allow a predator to select a victim from their other conversations and usernames without trawling through volumes of players.Of the four applications previously discussed who specified information retention periods for IP addresses ((Playerunknowns Battlegrounds (PUBG) MOBILE, Dragon City Mobile, Monster Legends, Brutal Age: Horde Invasion), only two specified chat log retention periods. The two games that elucidate their storage cycle are Playerunknowns Battlegrounds (PUBG) MOBILE and Brutal Age: Horde Invasion. Both share the same storage details; audio messages will be stored for seven days and then automatically deleted from the servers and text messages will be stored for the lifetime of the game usage, unless the game is shut down whereupon the data would be erased within a year or if a deletion request has been made then it will be eradicated within seven days. This is generally even shorter than the retention periods for IP data and other information, making it difficult and unlikely for the information to still be present after the crime has been reported, an investigation established and authority applied for and granted to the access of the online accounts and stored content. 12 of the 40 games explicitly note that they may moderate in game activities, such as chat, however none of the privacy policies provide detailed advisories of how the material is monitored, i.e. whether it is automated using selected keywords as filters or if by moderators within the games. Only Clash of Clans and Boom Beach describe that communications will be either manually or automatically checked however all the policies fail to inform how regularly this ‘may’ happen. When combined with data erasure rules, if an offence was being committed, it provides the perpetrator with the ability to request that the evidence of the crime they are affecting be deleted and if this information has not flagged up as inappropriate to the developers due to moderating inefficiencies then the base for an investigation is lost unless a separate record has been kept by the victim. This largely puts a vast amount of responsibility of the user being targeted, to document and report the actions of the person carrying out illegal activities. When linked to grooming this can be difficult, firstly the victim needs to understand what is happening and recognise it is wrong, and secondly they need to feel secure enough to report it, which in itself poses problems. As a result of the complex nature of online solicitation, depending on the age of the child, they may not feel comfortable discussing the issue with parents or adults or they may fear perceived repercussions such as game limitation, device confiscation or punishment. This then places the role of moderator onto parents or guardians of minors who also may be unaware of the dangers that could or are occurring, as highlighted by Whittle, Hamilton-Giachritsis and Beech (2014).MovieStarPlanet is the only game out of all 40 that provides a page detailing their moderation techniques in their games. They provide a ‘Safe Social Networking Framework’ (MovieStarPlanet, n.d.) as part of safety actions for children using the apps. According to MovieStarPlanet this includes, but is not limited to:A filtering and management system that is automated twenty-four hours to recognise unsuitable content and alert moderators;Trained people who monitor the game live to ‘remove inappropriate content’.Although this is the most detail seen in the policies analysed, the reliance on an electronic system to detect unsuitable content cannot be absolute. This requires a constant input of keywords or phrases in line with modern slang terms that are constantly evolving and changing.4.5 CooperationThere is limited information available when trying to understand the legal processes involved with law enforcement procedures and applications for user data content. Unlike Facebook, as evidenced by Horsman (2017), none of the applications in this research had specific platforms linked within their policies or terms directed towards law enforcement agencies and disclosure requests, although it could be maintained that this is because of the user volume on the social media platform compared to the amount playing within the applications.Of all the privacy policies, 34 state that they cooperation with law enforcement, court orders, judicial proceedings and/or legal services, outlining that personal information collected may be shared if requested to do so. The remaining six apps were The Wolf: Online RPG Simulator; Evil Lands: MMO RPG; Horse Quest Online 3D Simulator - My Multiplayer Pony Adventure; Blobz .IO: Online MMO Games; Wild City and Cubic Castles - Sandbox MMO whose policies are unclear and omit comment. Within the ‘Safeguarding Children’ section on MovieStarPlanet it specifically highlights the agencies that it cooperates with; ‘National Crime Agency Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, Childnet International and the UK Safer Internet Centre’ (MovieStarPlanet, n.d.) amongst others. This is the only app within this project that has disclosed some of the organisations they work with when helping to protect children. No other applications maintain a ‘safeguarding’ policy section. Cooperation between game developers and law enforcement is paramount when protecting children and adolescents from groomers. Although 34 of the policies state that they may share information when required it does not detail how easily this is done or the format that data is disclosed. Similarly there is a scarcity of knowledge around the time periods, costs and processes involved before agencies can request information. The Budapest Convention is an international treaty designed around the issue of cybercrime and collaboration of different nations. It highlights the condition when transferring data transnationally through appropriate legal assistance, a process that may take longer than the non-disclosed retention periods. As part of the Budapest Convention, the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty was devised as the legal procedure for states to follow however it has been described as ‘inefficient’ especially as the average response times being between six and twenty-four months (the Bureau, 2014) which can lead to a loss of data that may have been crucial. 5 Concluding thoughtsIt is arguable that the privacy policies and terms and conditions held by the gaming applications examined in this work are lacking in support for law enforcement investigations. However, without information regarding the mandatory procedure to be followed by legal teams, it is difficult to understand and advise what is required to improve existing measures and what is currently effectively working. As a result of the ease of sign up processes, or lack thereof in regards to guest accounts, investigations into online illegal activities may be reliant on metadata such as IP addresses and account identifiers as these may be the only methods for identifying an offender. However the lack of a requirement to collect and store this information for legal purposes, as opposed to company motives such as advertising, can hinder inspections. In cases where data is stored the lack of detail in retention periods can be damaging as an investigating officer is unaware if what information may have been gathered is still obtainable and if so, for how much longer. This then has the possibility to lead to a loss of content due to the assumption that the data has been erased by the time the legalities are met to access it or wasted money and resources attempting to acquire evidence that is long gone.The lack of age verification when accessing games and the failure in assigning appropriate age ratings to applications has been made apparent in this project. Unfortunately this can link to the work discussed by May-Chahal et al. (2018), whereby there may be an under reporting due to understanding of the illegalities of the crime happening. If appropriate age ratings, such as outlining the apps with chat features for thirteen years and older minimum, be set then it’s possible that fewer young children will be subjected to strangers within the game and education of older children can help understanding the offences.Gaming in applications when signed in through social media accounts may be the best way in tracking perpetrators due to the lengthy process and larger information requirement when signing in to the third party, as they generally necessitate further data such as email or phone number validations. In these cases, there is an increased chance that reliable information is attributed to a gaming account which can ultimately be used to identify an offender. Unfortunately the current retention periods mean that even if a victim were to make a record of online offending, the account deletion requests mean that tracing the perpetrator may be unachievable as their information may already be gone by the time the powers that be are able to request access. Where an account deletion request is made by a user, more defined terms of retention times of the account data are required in most instances as a deleted account in unlikely to be recoverable from a game vendor’s infrastructure. 5.1 RecommendationsGiven the information discussed in Table 1, the following recommendations are offered:Game distributors abolish the ability to play games using a guest account with no information input or regulate guest accounts.Developers request minimum input: name, age, email address and/or phone number when setting up an account or access necessary through third party sites such as Facebook, Google, or any others that require personal data for their use.Verifications are put in place for sign up processes such as:Email address;Phone number;Age: where age verifications are put in place, children younger than thirteen require parental permission before accessing content in line with relevant legislation.All developers programme chat filters which flag inappropriate content within their games or use AI technology;Legislation reconsiders minimum data retention periods in relation to data deletion requests, or procedures should be put in place to examine communication content where an erasure request has been submitted. This prevents offenders requesting an account deletion following abuse on in-game chat facilities as this content could be identified via to deletion.The procedures involved for police to access user data should be harmonised and described across all gaming platforms to support the regulation of offences. It also prevents offenders from gravitating towards platforms which they perceived to be weakly regulatuated. Therefore the development of a minimum regulatory standards to be applied across all mobile gaming apps is encouraged. Although these recommendations would support investigations of these platforms, it is understood that the feasibility may be difficult. This could be as a result of current lacking technology, costs incurred, victim privacy and sensitivity. 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