Newest Online Safety Group Will Report on Industry Efforts

Avoid overheated rhetoric in assessing the risk, advised Susan Crawford, special assistant to the president on science, technology and innovation, in opening remarks to the group. Certainly there are dangers, but the online risks might not be all that different from offline risks, she said. “The risks are far more subtle” than generally made out to be, she said.

President Barack Obama knows it’s “exceedingly difficult” to raise children in today’s violence- and sex- saturated culture, but he understands the issue is complex, Crawford said. In 2005 Obama wrote a letter Commerce Committee leaders regarding TV programming, she said, in which he said parents don’t want censorship but instead want greater control, more information and more choices that are family-friendly. A big focus for the group should be education of parents and children, she said. Crawford also asked the group to keep in mind risks to free speech and anonymity, saying even minors have First Amendment rights online, and urged members to consider ways to encourage innovation in protective technologies rather than setting technology mandates.

But the group must appreciate the nature of crimes against children, said Jason Weinstein, deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice criminal division. Child porn is essentially crime scene photos, he said, that show a crime in progress. Further, law enforcement sees escalating violence and ever-younger victims in these images, he said. The Internet has fueled demand for new, fresh and more disturbing images, he said. “We believe it’s driving the abuse of children,” Weinstein told the group. Last year the department brought 2,211 prosecutions against 2,289 people, a record breaking number, he said. Internet Crimes Against Children task forces brought another 3,000 cases, he said. The department doesn’t want to shut down the Internet, but it does need industry help to keep up with criminals, he said, though some of the necessary steps could come at a financial cost to corporations.

The group peppered Weinstein with questions, particularly seeking data that could help close the gap between academic research indicating the extent of risk and law enforcement’s perception of the risk. Group members also asked about the type of education messages Justice is promoting and the effectiveness of ICAC educational efforts. The ICAC is a program of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, so Weinstein, who’s been on the job less than a month, said he would forward questions to the office and ensure staffers were prepared to answer when they present to the group.

Aside from reconciling opposing views on the contentious issue of online safety, the group’s great challenge is getting its work done in a year with no funding and secondhand staff resources from NTIA. The group borrowed meeting space from the FCC for its first meeting. Some of the subcommittees’ plans for surveys of industry practices will probably require the assistance of trade groups, some of which are represented on the group. The unfunded nature of the group will make it difficult to generate its own scientific evidence, said member Larry Magid of SafeKids.com and ConnectSafely.org.

The group’s co-chairmen, Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer of News Corp., and Anne Collier of Net Family News and ConnectSafely.org, established four subcommittees to help the group meet its four mandates. According to the legislation, it must report on the status of industry efforts to promote safety through technology, labeling, filtering or blocking; the status of industry efforts to report apparent child porn and obstacles to reporting; record retention practices in regard to crimes against children; and the development of technologies to help parents protect their children. Michael McKeehan, executive director of Internet and technology policy at Verizon and chairman of the data retention subcommittee, said one of the questions his group will look at is what problem it’s trying to solve. He said he'd like to hear from as many experts as possible about what data should be retained, for how long and in what format. Chris Bubb of AOL, chairman of the child pornography reporting subcommittee, said he intends for his group to issue a report card on compliance as well as put together a guide to sound practices. The subcommittee will also look at the sexting issue, which he said could be “pseudo- pornography” because photos are often taken by the minors themselves.

The protection technology subcommittee will look at technology used today, attempt to determine a definition for “effective,” and look at both content and contact, said chairman Adam Thierer of the Progress and Freedom Foundation. He agreed with Parry Aftab of WiredSafety that one weakness of the Berkman report had been that technology vendors were unwilling to share the inner workings of their products. “It would be nice to get beyond press releases,” he said. It might be that the subcommittee will need to seek counsel from academics or consultants who study the technologies and would speak more freely, he said. Magid, chairman of the education subcommittee, said his group will look at the totality of education efforts, including efforts by industry, schools and non-governmental organizations. He said he'd like to look at fundamental education messages that remain the same no matter the “risk du jour.”