_4 min read_ Deciphering the role of Police Leadership in Protecting children in cyberspace involves understanding four themes . 1. What are the challenges in protecting children generally 2. What are the challenges in protecting children in cyberspace 3. What police can do in this 4. What police leaders can effectively do in this. **Child Protection**  It goes without saying that children are important for Police. However, it is pertinent to examine why children are important. Children are the most treasured assets of citizens. Parents would sell all their property, and then beg and borrow to retrieve a lost child. For the nation, they are the very future and hence it is cardinally important to ensure safe childhoods where children grow to their full potential, become assets to the national development and not liabilities that can hinder growth and prosperity. Police have to protect what citizens and the nation treasure. Any vulnerable section is a priority for a Police Leader. Children are the most vulnerable of all the sections. Chances of suffering violence and accidental injury are always more in the case of children. Their vulnerability is unique in that the vulnerability is not only social but strongly physical and cognitive. Intersectionality of these vulnerabilities along with the other social vulnerabilities operates in the case of children from vulnerable groups. Traditionally, children have been the lookout of families, neighbourhoods and other such in-groups. The role of police in Child Security was limited in such scenario. This is not unique to India. Urbanisation, increased mobility of children, spread of technology have all made such monitoring by in-groups increasingly difficult. Consequently, police, in the last few years, are suddenly finding themselves performing a big part in Child Security . This role is set to grow manifold in the short term. **Children in the Cyberspace** Children use cyberspace for their education and play. Much of their socialization as they grow up will now take place over cyberspace. For them, it is going to be an inseparable part of their lives, even as adults try to limit and regulate their use of cyberspace as per their age and maturity. A child using internet is at the confluence two highly vulnerable entities. Both the child and the cyberspace are highly susceptible categories to a range of manipulations and rather easily so. As we look beyond the sweeping generalizations that cyberspace is hugely vulnerable, we can identify a set of clear vulnerabilities that will help us formulate a workable strategy to counter those challenges. We can divide the vulnerabilities of cyberspace into four major categories, identified by the scholars in the field, and prioritized on the basis of the potential for crime they pose. 1. Anonymity of the Contacts: Edward Lucas([Cyberphobia, 2015](https://www.ft.com/content/7644d014-57a9-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2)) identified the near impossibility of doing away anonymity, as the biggest threat. There is practically no way to credibly establish who is at the other end in most of the scenarios. Be it a social media chat or a video call or a video conference for a classroom, establishing the identity of others for sure continues and is likely to continue as an impossible task. 2. Securing a Ring of Safety, Privacy: The inability of the cyberspace architecture to limit intrusion into the private space of the user is the next challenge. The most intimate of our possessions, be it our bodies, or our account details or the most private of conversations are all readily and almost constantly vulnerable when one is in touch with the cyberspace. 3. A Weak Edifice- Device, Network, Cloud: The possibility of the device, the network and the cloud platforms getting compromised is the next challenge. Because of the vulnerability built into of the very idea of software coding, the cyberspace is prone to hacking at all these three layers and it happens with disturbing frequency. (Weak Edifice+ Weak Entity). Unfortunately, we are yet to see a child phone or a child only network or a good cloud platform exclusively created for children. Even as films are rated as A, UA and U, no one cares to insist on such rating for websites. 4. Not yet a fully evolved Regulatory Framework: The complexity of the ecosystem, coupled with nearly-absent international norms make it impossible for the user to depend upon any reliable protocol. Each company is coming up with its own norms. When it is a child who is using cyberspace, all these vulnerabilities are compounded and the challenges grow exponentially. **The Role of Police** Police have arguably mainly three roles to perform here. - Firstly, to secure children from violence and other harms. - Second, to ensure justice to any child who has been a victim of violence or criminal neglect. - Third, to co create security with children by actively involving them in finding solutions **The Role of the Police Leader** The Police Leader with an understanding of the policy challenges and a clear map of the range of responses readily available with her can make massive influence on the way children are made secure in the cyberspace. She needs to strive also for technological solutions such as 1. Cyber-fortified Children 2. Child Safe Devices 3. Child Safe Networks 4. Child Safe Cloud Platforms #PoCh #SeCyS #Arts