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 similar to AI – serves as a constructive power for the subsequent technology. As policymakers and regulators weigh potential measures to assist advance security outcomes within the coming weeks and months, it’s important that they think about each the advantages and the dangers of know-how for younger folks. Based on our experiences, we define three themes for policymakers to contemplate as they work via initiatives to guard youth security and privateness on-line, in addition to Microsoft’s place on these points.
Microsoft’s strategy to on-line security
At Microsoft, our objective is to empower younger folks to make use of know-how safely, mindfully, and in pursuit of social, instructional, and financial alternatives. In protecting with our mission and our commitments, this implies:
- Unlocking the advantages and energy of know-how for all
- Maintaining our longstanding efforts to advance baby on-line security and privateness
- Advancing our understanding of how know-how and baby well-being intersect
We have lengthy acknowledged that now we have a duty to assist protected 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 not any one-size-fits-all strategy; interventions to guard youth from dangerous on-line content material or conduct or their information needs to be tailor-made to the service or function, and to the hurt we’re looking for to deal with.
Key themes for policymakers to deal with in 2024 and past
- Technology is crucial to allow younger folks to unlock social, instructional, and financial alternatives.
Policy and regulatory measures ought to protect the advantages of know-how for younger folks and allow them to take part totally of their communities. Technology has been proven to:
- Create social alternatives: It permits younger folks to attach with others, entry various assets and views, and discover assist and knowledge on-line
- Provide instructional advantages: It can improve entry to studying alternatives, assist various learners thrive, and assist younger folks develop abilities for the digital future
- Create financial alternatives: Mastering computing and AI abilities will change into more and more important for a lot of careers throughout all the financial system. Technology also can empower younger folks to create and innovate, with instruments similar to generative AI
However, we additionally acknowledge that know-how can have unfavourable impacts on younger folks’s well-being, and that these impacts aren’t evenly distributed: Some younger folks could also be extra weak or marginalized than others. These dangers may additionally change as know-how evolves.
- Empowering younger folks to make use of know-how safely and mindfully requires age-appropriate experiences however age assurance strategies have trade-offs.
We want to have the ability to determine the ages of our customers to guard in opposition to potential hurt. Knowing a person is beneath a sure age can allow the applying of various content material insurance policies, privateness settings, household security options, or the supply of age-appropriate content material.
However, there are challenges and tradeoffs in implementing strong age assurance processes. There is presently 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 similar to potential safety, privateness, and human rights dangers. In addition to contemplating how we are able to construct an interoperable and frictionless person expertise, conversations are underway throughout business on methods to mitigate the next:
- Privacy and safety dangers, similar to gathering and processing delicate private information
- Equity and entry challenges, similar to excluding or discriminating in opposition to sure teams of customers
- Civil rights and authorities surveillance considerations, similar to undermining on-line anonymity and freedom of expression
- User expertise points, similar to creating obstacles or delays to entry on-line companies
Microsoft is exploring completely different age assurance strategies, enabling us to be taught and enhance our practices and options. We are partaking with technical and different organizations such because the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to assist develop frameworks to assist interoperable and privacy-protective age assurance applied sciences.
But we additionally want the assist and steerage of policymakers, regulators, and different specialists to assist navigate these trade-offs and discover sensible options which might be each efficient and respect elementary 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 are able to 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 continually replace and enhance our understanding of how know-how impacts younger folks’s well-being, and the way we are able to design know-how and insurance policies to finest assist and defend them. More analysis is rising about the usage of social media, however we see a necessity for extra, medically knowledgeable analysis to grasp the influence of various on-line companies on youth psychological well being, improvement, and studying.
We encourage stakeholders and specialists to put money into additional analysis on various subjects, similar to constructing understanding of how youth have interaction with completely different sorts of know-how, the influence of limiting entry to know-how, whether or not some options or content material could be extra appropriately restricted than others, and the potential to leverage know-how to ship psychological well being interventions. To assist this, on Safer Internet Day we’ll publish the newest outcomes from our annual client analysis.
And, all through, there’s a have to heart youth voices and views – we can’t meet our objectives with out understanding what younger folks need and want from know-how.
Our assist for regulatory measures
Regulatory measures such because the EU Digital Services Act are driving systemic modifications in how business approaches digital security. We assist the event of tailor-made, considerate measures that may assist younger folks to interact safely on-line and commend the great practices beginning to emerge globally. Microsoft helps:
- Risk-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 danger or influence assessments to ship efficient mitigations for dangers to youngsters and younger folks within the design or operation of these companies.
- Clearly outlined harms and duties: Where proposals incorporate an obligation of care to deal with potential harms to youngsters, we encourage policymakers to supply readability on what’s required to discharge these duties and to obviously outline the harms at concern, based mostly on scientific analysis.
- Outcome-based approaches: To allow a service-specific strategy that helps the rights and finest pursuits of the kid, we welcome regulatory approaches that concentrate on guaranteeing the techniques and processes are in place to mitigate danger 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.
- Providing parental guardrails: Where acceptable to the service, we assist necessities to supply dad and mom and caregivers with strong instruments that allow them to decide on guardrails to handle their baby’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 folks.