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Circles of support

Multi Me is an online toolkit and networking platform for vulnerable users. Security and safety are our number one priority.

Data Protection

See frequently asked questions about data protection here

Safe Social Networking and Support Networking

The My Circle feature provides a secure network around a user. It allows the person to share and interact with other users in their Circle on a one-to-one basis. Circle members can be sorted into the categories of Friends, Family or Professionals. For individuals that require help on the system, key supporters in their Circle can be made into personal admins known as ‘Buddies’. Buddies have the ability to manage the individuals own permissions on multi me, their Circle membership and define members access to their Stuff e.g. their Wiki, Diary or Goals.

Groups & Communities

Individuals and organisations can both create their own groups. Groups created in a school or college for instance, may be for classes, activities or interest groups. An individual may create their own groups for their family and friends, or their Buddy may create a group for professional contact around the individuals’ health or support needs.

Special groups can be created by organisations called ‘Buddy Groups’, these allow Account Holders to easily manage the access of staff and service users.

Multi Me provides a secure and managed social networking and collaboration platform for learning disabled individuals and the people who support them in their day to day life.

Multi Me also builds secure social Communities for organisations that support learning disabled people.

Multi Me is built up of managed Communities of supported and supporting users based around a group or organisation, or around an individual’s own ‘Circle’ of family, friendship and support.

User types and permissions

Users on Multi Me can have the following roles; Account Holders, Buddies, Supported Users and General Users. Account Holders manage Communities of users and define user roles. Buddies can be assigned by Account Holders to manage Supported Users. General Users neither manage others, or are managed by others themselves.

Circle Communities involve the membership of the individuals’ friends, family and professional relations and can be managed by the individual themselves or their assigned Buddy.

The Multi Me platform has four different user types:

1. Account Holders are typically the people who manage Multi Me for their service, eg. An ICT administrator in a school, or quite often, a tech savvy teacher. The Account Holder can create and delete users. Define users types and match Buddies to Supported Users in the Community. The Account Holder can also define certain templates for Users in their Community, for example permissions templates for Supported Users and Diary Log templates for daily recording.

2. Buddies are created and managed by Account Holders. Buddies can be assigned to manage Supported Users accounts and have the ability to set permissions, moderate and manage their work. Buddy Users are typically key workers, teachers, teaching assistants or family members.

3. Supported Users​ are created and managed by Account Holders. Supported Users are typically people with learning disabilities, or young or other vulnerable users on the system. Supported User Profiles are hidden by default, which means they cannot see or be seen by other users who do not share the same Communities as them. Certain functionality for Supported Users can be switched off in the permissions area, or may require verification by the Buddy.

4. General Users ​are users that are neither of the above. They may be users that have been invited to join an individuals Circle such as a physio, health professional or family member. General users only manage their own Stuff, but can be given view or edit rights over a Supported User’s Stuff by the Buddy.

The Buddy feature

A Buddy has administrative rights over the Supported User that they manage. This includes the ability to manage the individual’s ‘Stuff’, such as their Diary, Wiki or Goals and to manage the membership and access of this Stuff to people in their Circle.

The Buddy feature provides a supported solution that gives individuals with learning disabilities maximum visibility and control of their own information and at the same time, allows important information to be added and shared appropriately by and with members of the individual’s Circle, by the Buddies discretion.

The Buddy can also switch on/off certain functionality for the individual they support, or choose to moderate aspects of their activity and sharing.

About the Buddy feature and mental capacity

The Buddy feature is a unique safeguarding and support feature that helps key individuals provide support to people who need it. The system helps keep the platform safe and allows key individuals to input and access information easily. Buddy users can also help Supported Users learn to post and share appropriately with others and therefore support their skills in communication and social media, thus building their independence from Buddy support.

The matter of mental capacity and consent for people with learning disabilities and other vulnerable users is a complex and artful one, the Buddy feature needs to be used responsibly in line with mental capacity and GDPR legislation, good person centred practice and common sense.

Care needs to be taken by Buddies and Account Holders (who manage Buddies and Supported Users), to ensure that proper consideration is given over Buddy roles and the access/control the Buddy has over an individual and their information and how this information is shared on behalf of the individual.

Many individuals with a learning disability may not require a Buddy, or controls may be set to a very minimal level.

User privacy and data control 

No individual profiles are made available to the general public through Multi Me. Furthermore, users cannot share their own account information or user posts with anyone on Multi Me outside of their Circle or Communities.  

Our mission is to give vulnerable users maximum control of their information, this applies to data uploaded by themselves as well as others that input data about them. Multi Me puts our user privacy first and provides transparency about the sort of data we collect and store, why we do this and when we erase this data. Please have a look at our ​Privacy Policy  for more information.

Sharing

A users ‘Stuff’ (including Wiki, Diary, Goals Media etc..) is private by default on Multi Me until it is shared by them or their Buddy.

There are four ways to share information using Multi Me:

1. Users can share their ‘Stuff’ with their Circle. This can be vetoed/disallowed by the Buddy for Supported Users.

2. Users can create or join in group or one-to-one messages/chats. This can be vetoed/disallowed by the Buddy for Supported Users.

3. Buddy users can Share a users ‘Stuff’ on behalf of the individual to users in their Circle.

4. Buddy users can send a view only access link by email (for non-registered users) to view a users ‘Stuff’, or can create ‘public’ access links that can be copied and shared, e.g via QR code.

Buddies can manage the sharing of certain assets such as My Media, My Diary or My Wiki through a ‘Manage Access’  feature which gives an overview of all the users, groups and email access users have access and what sort of access they have. Buddies can also manage sharing access through the individual’s Circle.

Sharing with Groups can be moderated by Group Admins.   

We display this message where possible:

A note on sharing: Through sharing your own or Supported User’s content with other users you are giving consent for them to view the shared material and download/view any linked attachments. Although users are not able to share-on shared information with other users on the system, we can not physically stop them screen capturing, or downloading shared content. Therefore, we ask users to respect each others privacy and to not do this without consent of the owner.

Security feature overview

• GDPR compliant for user data processing and management

• SSL secure connection

• User accounts are protected by password encryption, (Secure picture password accessible login option available)

• Auto lock-down feature after 5 failed attempts

• Auto-log out after period of 15 mins inactivity

• User management portal for Account Holders

• Managed Communities of known and trusted users

• Buddy system for vulnerable users

• Ability to lock-down access to Communities via I.P address

• Removal of EXIF data (geolocation data) from media uploads for user privacy

• AWS hosting in the UK, 99% uptime guaranteed, backed up daily

Server security

Multi Me is a web-hosted application. Our UK based secure AWS servers are backed up on a daily basis making sure that we can recover data in case of the rare chance that there is a problem with the site or database. 99% uptime is guaranteed.  Security is our number one priority, we make sure that the website is protected against all common attacks. The website operates over an SSL connection making sure that all data transmitted between the servers and the web browser is secure and encrypted. We also use a similar process when storing any data.

The security of your personal information is important to us. We work hard to  protect our users, and we maintain administrative, technical and  physical safeguards designed to protect against unauthorised use, disclosure  of or access to personal information. In particular:

• Our engineering team is dedicated to keeping your personal information secure

• We work with a team of security researchers to continually test multi me security practices for vulnerabilities

• We periodically review our information collection, storage and processing practices, including physical security measures, to guard against unauthorized access to systems

• We continually develop and implement features to keep your personal information safe - for example, when you enter any information anywhere on the Service, we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL/TLS) by default

• We ensure passwords are stored and transferred securely using encryption and salted hashing

• The multi me service is hosted on servers at a third-party facility (AWS), with whom we have a contract providing for enhanced security measures. For example, personal information is stored on a server e​quipped with industry standard firewalls. In addition, the hosting facility provides a 24x7 security system, video surveillance, intrusion detection systems and locked cage areas.

• We automatically delete inactive user accounts that are unsubscribed after a period of 12 months as per our retention policy.

Any questions? Contact us 

If you have a question or feedback about Multi Me security we would love to hear from you. Please contact us at ​privacy@multime.com​ with  your question. 

©MULTI-ME 2021