Understanding Red Flag Icons, Colors, and Categories

This article is for School Administrators and Wellbeing Staff.

Red Flags are tags that show the category of potentially risky web and how often users attempt to access it.

Icons and Colors of Risk Indicators

The colour and grouping of the Red Flags in the Risk Indicators column can help you identify the frequency and types of risky online content users attempt to access. We often refer to the Risk Indicators as Red Flags because these tags appear in the Red Flags reports, Dashboard tiles, and columns.

The categories contain the content the user was allowed to access and any content they were blocked from accessing. To see the details of the content a user was blocked from accessing, go to the Blocked Report tool and select the user you are concerned about.

Red Flag Icons

You can quickly recognise the category of the Risk Indicator by the following icons.

icon_globe.png A Globe means the user accessed or was trying to access content hosted on websites or web servers.
icon_gear.png A Gear means the user used or tried to use apps and services, like VPNs, that may bypass filtering.
icon_magnifying-glass.png A Magnifying Glass is displayed when the keywords your IT Admin has set up are used in search engines (like Google, Bing, and the YouTube website).

Red Flag Colors

While we refer to these elements as “Red Flags”, you will notice two other colours in the Risk Indicators column. The colour of the Risk Indicator lets you know how frequently the user attempted to access this category of online content.

Risk Indicator Description

red-flag-vpn-red.png

red-flag-adult-cotent.png

red-flag-depression.png

Red indicates frequent attempts to access potentially risky content or conduct an unsafe search.

This user's total number of attempts was greater than 5% of the blocked attempts in this category for all of the users in School Manager. Users with the highest count of red indicators will appear at the top of Red Flag lists in your dashboard, report pages, and email reports. Will be associated with the device, website, or search activity.

red-flag-adult-content-pink.png

red-flag-suicide-pink.png

red-flag-vpn.png

Pink indicates consistency in accessing potentially risky content or conducting an unsafe search.

This user's total number of attempts in this category is between 2% and 5% compared to the total attempts in this category for all users. Users usually appear in the middle of Red Flag lists with only pink and blue indicators.

red-flag-adult-content-blue.png

red-flag-36degrees-blue.png

red-flag-hate-speech-blue.png

Blue indicates a user has attempted to access potentially risky content or use unsafe search keywords on a few occasions, typically once or twice within the selected time period.

The total number of attempts in this category is less than 2% of the attempts compared to all other users. Users usually appear at the bottom of Red Flag lists if they only have blue categories.

Red Flag Categories

Overall, you will be able to assess potential threats by reviewing a common set of categories of Risk Indicators:

Risk Indicator Category Description
Academic Dishonesty Intelligent systems (AI Tools) that may be used to cheat on exams and assignments
Adult Content Websites and apps known to host videos, images, and audio of sexual or explicit content
Adult Content Search Keywords, slang, or code words associated with sexual or explicit content
Bullying Online activities causing psychological harm by repeated aggressive actions like teasing, shaming, rejecting, or criticizing a person, especially on social media or within a social group
Depression Negative feelings interfering with healthy social and mental interactions
Devices An excessive number of devices are logged on with a student’s account, which may indicate a user sharing their login information with other users.
Hate Speech Threatening or abusive activities directed at traits and labels associated with groups of people
Offensive Content Inappropriate topics such as vulgar and explicit language, images, video, or audio that does not fit standard categories like Adult Content or Hate Speech
Substance Abuse Tobacco, alcohol, and drugs, including behaviours associated with addiction
Suicide Ending one’s life, which may include self-harm and associated behaviours
Violence Planning or threatening harm, death, or damage to people, property, or objects of emotional or financial value
VPN Apps and services used to hide online activity, anonymize a user's identity on a safe network, and bypass filtering.

List Criteria

When a user enters a search, it is checked against the following four criteria in order: Exclude, Definitive, Keywords and Matchers. Searches containing exempt words (from the Exclude list) are not flagged. A search is targeted for flagging when it includes terms from the Definitive list or meets the conditions set by Keywords and Matchers.

Flagged searches trigger alerts or send email notifications depending on your School Manager configuration.

1. Exclude

Description Examples Example Searches
Words on this list are exempt from being flagged.
  • dog
  • lyric(s)
  • Targeted: Does anxiety run in the family?
  • Excluded: Do dogs get separation anxiety?
  • Targeted: How do I deal with constant anxiety?
  • Excluded: All the kids are depressed lyrics

2. Definitive

Description Examples Example Searches
A single word from this list triggers a red flag.
  • porn
  • NSFW images
  • Popular porn sites
  • Gallery of NSFW images

3. Keywords and Matchers

Description Examples Example Searches

Keywords and matchers work together to determine if a search is risky.

Keyword: A word of interest.


Matcher: A term that confirms context.

Keywords:

  • weed
  • crack
  • pot
  • wine

Matchers:

  • smoke
  • buy
  • inject
  • snort
  • Targeted: How do I smoke weed?
  • Targeted: Where can I buy weed?
  • Excluded: How do I kill weeds?
  • Excluded: Can I grow tomatoes in a pot?
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