AbdulMajeed M Alshehri | University of Galway (original) (raw)

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Thesis Chapters by AbdulMajeed M Alshehri

Digital footprint is a fairly new concept that many people are not aware of. They are not concern... more Digital footprint is a fairly new concept that many people are not aware of. They are not concerned about the amount of information they let out on the Internet and how it could be used. With increasing Internet usage in different ways such as social networking, making business transactions, purchases or only searching, personal details are bound to remain on the Internet. This repeated relaying of personal information whenever a person visits a site is known as a digital footprint. The site owners can use this information without the knowledge of the individual user. It is therefore important that people are aware of and pay attention to the amount of information they provide on the Internet. Owing to this prevalent concern in Saudi Arabia, the goal of this research study is to determine the level of awareness and knowledge of online security among its population. A questionnaire was especially designed to poll awareness of Internet privacy and security issues and was administered online with Google Forms. In all, 130 participants from Saudi Arabia ressponded to the questionnaire. Participants were all over 18 years of age.

Overall, the research shows that there is poor understanding of what a digital footprint is and the risks involved with using social networking sites and other Internet activity. Firstly, 84.5% of the respondents were not aquainted with the term “digital footprint,” 48.8% used their real personal information online, two thirds of paricipants did not know if they used cookies, only 10.1% answered that they have allowed the use of cookies, and about half of the respondents had read instructions or privacy policies before signing up to a service. Morever, 56.6% responded that they used sites or apps that enabled login via Facebook. Interestingly, there was a noticeable difference between the genders. One-third of female respondents found it easy to state their gender, whereas only 10% of males stated their gender. Similarly, females found it much easier than males to provide their full names. Other information that males and females both found relatively easy to provide were their date of birth and phone numbers. Nevertheless, 22% felt uncomfortable when asked to provide personal information when visiting a site. The findings lead to the conclusion that there is a low awareness of digital footprint and online privacy issues. Morover, relatively few participants aquaint themselves with the privacy policies of social media sites or search engines, or know what cookies contain and how they can be used. Surprisingly, the results were not so different than the findings of the Pew Internet of 2007, suggesting that people haven’t become any more savvy about providing personal infomration online almost 10 years later. One area of difference females are less confident than males in websites keeping thier personal information secure. They are more likely to read instructions and use their own privacy

policies, and less likely to use their real personal details. The difference between age groups, however, is very small. Both awareness and behavior seems rather consistent with age. Despite the low confidence in website privacy protection, almost half of the respondents believe that the protection of their personal information is the responsibility of the site operator or the government, rather than their own. This is another indicator of how digital footprint is poorly understood.

Papers by AbdulMajeed M Alshehri

In this project, Huawei was selected by a consultancy team in order to assess the policies and p... more In this project, Huawei was selected by a consultancy team in order to assess the policies and practices associated with how Huawei innovates. The outcome of the project was An assessment of current policies and practice and recommendations for how policies and practice might be improved.

In this project, a case study was given in order to came up with a report to the owner addressing... more In this project, a case study was given in order to came up with a report to the owner addressing all those issues and concerns and proposing possible solutions and/or alternatives for the restaurant ICT infrastructure. The case study was for Harry’s Bistros which is a hypothetical client as the client want to implement Online Restaurant Booking and Ordering System. The report contains real vendors of hardware, software, ISPs, and other service providers. Compare alternatives, prices, estimate resources needed for implementations (e.g. initial cost, running cost, effort, time, admin issues if any, etc.)

The goal was to create a website for Galway Art Festival which is a hypothetical client .This wa... more The goal was to create a website for Galway Art Festival which is a hypothetical client .This was done in order to get better understanding of the skills that are needed in the area of website design and development. There were many things that were taken in order to submit a successful project such as Market Research, identifying audiences.