SAFE BY DESIGN · EPISODE 07

The Secret That Wasn't a Secret

Nothing on Tara's profile was a secret. Read all together, it said far more than she meant it to.

Safe by Design, episode 7: The Secret That Wasn't a Secret. The family tablet inside an open ring; "The bio rewrite" stops at a yellow pause sign: Small details add up.

Tara had spent the whole of Sunday morning on the sofa, redoing her profile on the drawing app where she posts her pictures. New picture, new colours, a bio rewritten four times. Arjun's job was voting on emojis.

Then she turned the phone round to Riya and said, in her best Arjun voice:

“I'm not sure. Can you check this with me?”

Tara, 13

Arjun groaned; the family's pause phrase had become a household joke. But Tara held the phone out a little longer than a joke needed.

Tara's fictional public profile showing her first name, her age of 13, her full birthday, her school's full name, that her art club meets on Thursdays after school, and her drawings.

Nothing on it was a secret. Half her class had sung to her on that birthday. Her school's name was stitched on her jumper. Yet read in one place, it gave Riya the small pause she had learned to trust.

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