As we head into 2024, there’s an pressing name to motion for us all to take steps to guard youth security and privateness on-line and to make sure that know-how – together with rising applied sciences resembling AI – serves as a optimistic power for the subsequent era. As policymakers and regulators weigh potential measures to assist advance security outcomes within the coming weeks and months, it’s important that they contemplate each the advantages and the dangers of know-how for younger individuals. Based mostly on our experiences, we define three themes for policymakers to contemplate as they work by initiatives to guard youth security and privateness on-line, in addition to Microsoft’s place on these points.
Microsoft’s method to on-line security
At Microsoft, our objective is to empower younger individuals to make use of know-how safely, mindfully, and in pursuit of social, academic, and financial alternatives. Consistent with our mission and our commitments, this implies:
- Unlocking the advantages and energy of know-how for all
- Sustaining our longstanding efforts to advance youngster on-line security and privateness
- Advancing our understanding of how know-how and youngster well-being intersect
We’ve lengthy acknowledged that we have now a duty to assist secure on-line experiences for our customers, together with youth, and to contribute to a safer on-line ecosystem. This requires us to stability youth rights thoughtfully and holistically, together with freedom of expression, entry to info, privateness, and safety. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all method; interventions to guard youth from dangerous on-line content material or conduct or their knowledge ought to be tailor-made to the service or function, and to the hurt we’re searching for to deal with.
Key themes for policymakers to deal with in 2024 and past
- Know-how is vital to allow younger individuals to unlock social, academic, and financial alternatives.
Coverage and regulatory measures ought to protect the advantages of know-how for younger individuals and allow them to take part totally of their communities. Know-how has been proven to:
- Create social alternatives: It allows younger individuals to attach with others, entry numerous sources and views, and discover assist and data on-line
- Present academic advantages: It may improve entry to studying alternatives, assist numerous learners thrive, and assist younger individuals develop expertise for the digital future
- Create financial alternatives: Mastering computing and AI expertise will develop into more and more important for a lot of careers throughout your entire economic system. Know-how also can empower younger individuals to create and innovate, with instruments resembling generative AI
Nonetheless, we additionally acknowledge that know-how can have destructive impacts on younger individuals’s well-being, and that these impacts will not be evenly distributed: Some younger individuals could also be extra weak or marginalized than others. These dangers may change as know-how evolves.
- Empowering younger individuals to make use of know-how safely and mindfully requires age-appropriate experiences however age assurance strategies have trade-offs.
We’d like to have the ability to determine the ages of our customers to guard in opposition to potential hurt. Realizing a person is beneath a sure age can allow the applying of various content material insurance policies, privateness settings, household security options, or the availability of age-appropriate content material.
Nonetheless, there are challenges and tradeoffs in implementing sturdy age assurance processes. There’s at present no clear technical answer to age assurance that achieves the accuracy wanted to successfully determine or confirm a person’s age with out risking trade-offs resembling potential safety, privateness, and human rights dangers. Along with contemplating how we will construct an interoperable and frictionless person expertise, conversations are underway throughout trade on methods to mitigate the next:
- Privateness and safety dangers, resembling accumulating and processing delicate private knowledge
- Fairness and entry challenges, resembling excluding or discriminating in opposition to sure teams of customers
- Civil rights and authorities surveillance considerations, resembling undermining on-line anonymity and freedom of expression
- Person expertise points, resembling creating obstacles or delays to entry on-line companies
Microsoft is exploring completely different age assurance strategies, enabling us to study and enhance our practices and options. We’re participating with technical and different organizations such because the Worldwide Group for Standardization (ISO) to assist develop frameworks to assist interoperable and privacy-protective age assurance applied sciences.
However we additionally want the assist and steerage of policymakers, regulators, and different specialists to assist navigate these trade-offs and discover sensible options which can be each efficient and respect basic rights. We additionally wish to work with specialists to deepen our understanding of how age info ought to inform completely different interventions throughout completely different companies and options, in addition to the place we will appropriately supply options with out age verification measures.
- We should proceed to develop the required proof base to design know-how and insurance policies to advance youth well-being.
We have to consistently replace and enhance our understanding of how know-how impacts younger individuals’s well-being, and the way we will design know-how and insurance policies to finest assist and defend them. Extra analysis is rising about the usage of social media, however we see a necessity for extra, medically knowledgeable analysis to know the impression of various on-line companies on youth psychological well being, growth, and studying.
We encourage stakeholders and specialists to spend money on additional analysis on numerous matters, resembling constructing understanding of how youth have interaction with completely different sorts of know-how, the impression of limiting entry to know-how, whether or not some options or content material is likely to be extra appropriately restricted than others, and the potential to leverage know-how to ship psychological well being interventions. To assist this, on Safer Web Day we’ll publish the most recent outcomes from our annual client analysis.
And, all through, there’s a must middle youth voices and views – we can’t meet our objectives with out understanding what younger individuals need and want from know-how.
Our assist for regulatory measures
Regulatory measures such because the EU Digital Companies Act are driving systemic modifications in how trade approaches digital security. We assist the event of tailor-made, considerate measures that may assist younger individuals to interact safely on-line and commend the nice practices beginning to emerge globally. Microsoft helps:
- Danger-based approaches, tailor-made to particular on-line companies and options: We assist regulatory approaches that clearly differentiate between distinctive on-line companies and leverage threat or impression assessments to ship efficient mitigations for dangers to kids and younger individuals within the design or operation of these companies.
- Clearly outlined harms and duties: The place proposals incorporate an obligation of care to deal with potential harms to kids, we encourage policymakers to supply readability on what’s required to discharge these duties and to obviously outline the harms at challenge, based mostly on scientific analysis.
- Consequence-based approaches: To allow a service-specific method that helps the rights and finest pursuits of the kid, we welcome regulatory approaches that target guaranteeing the programs and processes are in place to mitigate threat and construct in improved privateness protections for kids and youths.
- Regulatory harmonization and interoperability: To assist seamless on-line experiences, we encourage ongoing regulatory cooperation and harmonization, together with between privateness and security regulators, and worldwide regulators.
- Offering parental guardrails: The place applicable to the service, we assist necessities to supply dad and mom and caregivers with sturdy instruments that allow them to decide on guardrails to handle their youngster’s on-line experiences.
We welcome the chance to additional have interaction with specialists, policymakers, and regulators to assist the event of a safer on-line ecosystem for younger individuals.
