The ERTZ's dissemination activities are based on an agreement from 2013 signed between the Basque education department and the security department. The awareness campaigns are carried out with talks in different centres, from schools to universities and organisations. There are a total of 9 different talks, including threats on the internet. The objective of these talks is to promote the values of responsibility, privacy, empathy and dignity. The presentations are given in a time slot of 1.30-2 hours. The presentations (PowerPoint) are the same for all Euskadi. The talk is supported with real examples of dangerous situations such as grooming, cyberbullying and so on. The presentations also include videos. During the presentation, the ERTZ also explains the main laws and responsibilities associated with all these dangers on the Internet.
One of the main objectives of these talks is to promote the work of ERTZ and publicize the role of ERTZ in the defence of the freedoms of all. Therefore, the ERTZ give the talks dressed in their uniform. Using the uniform in friendly situations increases the trust in authorities as many at-risk groups need to discover uniformed personnel not only when doing something illegal or wrong.
The ERTZ has carried out more than 1000 talks, the major part of them are about cybersecurity or dangers on the internet. For example, in the school year from 2018 to 2019 (before the pandemic), the ERTZ conducted a total of 1145 talks. Out of 470 were about dangers on the internet. The talk is addressed to groups of people ranging from 5 years to university students. Therefore, the ERTZ designed two types of presentations one for younger students (5th grade) and the other for older students (3rd of high school onwards). The education centres and organisations are the ones who ask the ERTZ to conduct the talk.
Younger groups of students are more interested in the talks. The talks have to be adapted depending on the age of the group.
The school training campaigns work with volunteers, if there are no prepared volunteers it's not possible to implement the solution. Further, there are schools that do not want to participate in the awareness campaigns.
It is important to make the initiative known to the schools. If the schools do not know that the campaign exists, the solution will not be effective.
Raising awareness of the risks associated with the internet makes students more cautious in their online practices and more open to following recommendations and advice.
If the students do not trust the authorities are less willing to take their recommendations.
To evaluate the effectiveness of the solution, they use a questionnaire that is filled out by the students after the talk. With the survey, they gather quantitative and qualitative information to evaluate the level of knowledge that the students have gained and the level of acceptance.
The survey includes closed questions in which the students assess from 1 to 5 the usefulness of the talk, the communication skills of the ERTZ and the knowledge obtained.
Additionally, the ERTZ gives talks in the same school, in the same class but at different years to evaluate if the students remember the information they shared previously with them.
They have also seen that the talks are effective because in those schools where they have conducted emergency talks (there is a problem and the school calls them to organize a talk about the problem) the problem disappears. In the future, they will compare the statistics of cyberbullying cases from different years to see if the cases decreased.