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 expertise – together with rising applied sciences comparable to AI – serves as a constructive power for the following 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 expertise for younger folks. Primarily based 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 strategy to on-line security
At Microsoft, our objective is to empower younger folks to make use of expertise safely, mindfully, and in pursuit of social, instructional, and financial alternatives. Consistent with our mission and our commitments, this implies:
- Unlocking the advantages and energy of expertise for all
- Sustaining our longstanding efforts to advance youngster on-line security and privateness
- Advancing our understanding of how expertise and youngster well-being intersect
We now have lengthy acknowledged that we have now a accountability 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 isn’t any one-size-fits-all strategy; interventions to guard youth from dangerous on-line content material or conduct or their information ought to be tailor-made to the service or function, and to the hurt we’re in search of to handle.
Key themes for policymakers to give attention to in 2024 and past
- Know-how is essential to allow younger folks to unlock social, instructional, and financial alternatives.
Coverage and regulatory measures ought to protect the advantages of expertise for younger folks and allow them to take part absolutely of their communities. Know-how has been proven to:
- Create social alternatives: It allows younger folks to attach with others, entry various assets and views, and discover assist and data on-line
- Present instructional advantages: It might probably enhance entry to studying alternatives, assist various learners thrive, and assist younger folks develop expertise for the digital future
- Create financial alternatives: Mastering computing and AI expertise will change into more and more important for a lot of careers throughout all the economic system. Know-how may also empower younger folks to create and innovate, with instruments comparable to generative AI
Nonetheless, we additionally acknowledge that expertise can have unfavourable impacts on younger folks’s well-being, and that these impacts usually are not evenly distributed: Some younger folks could also be extra weak or marginalized than others. These dangers may additionally change as expertise evolves.
- Empowering younger folks to make use of expertise safely and mindfully requires age-appropriate experiences however age assurance strategies have trade-offs.
We want to have the ability to establish the ages of our customers to guard towards potential hurt. Figuring out a person is below 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 may be at present no clear technical resolution to age assurance that achieves the accuracy wanted to successfully establish or confirm a person’s age with out risking trade-offs comparable to potential safety, privateness, and human rights dangers. Along with contemplating how we will construct an interoperable and frictionless person expertise, conversations are underway throughout business on methods to mitigate the next:
- Privateness and safety dangers, comparable to amassing and processing delicate private information
- Fairness and entry challenges, comparable to excluding or discriminating towards sure teams of customers
- Civil rights and authorities surveillance considerations, comparable to undermining on-line anonymity and freedom of expression
- Person expertise points, comparable 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’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 good options which can be each efficient and respect elementary rights. We additionally need 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 mandatory proof base to design expertise and insurance policies to advance youth well-being.
We have to always replace and enhance our understanding of how expertise impacts younger folks’s well-being, and the way we will design expertise and insurance policies to greatest 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 affect of various on-line companies on youth psychological well being, improvement, and studying.
We encourage stakeholders and specialists to spend money on additional analysis on various matters, comparable to constructing understanding of how youth have interaction with completely different sorts of expertise, the affect of limiting entry to expertise, whether or not some options or content material is perhaps extra appropriately restricted than others, and the potential to leverage expertise 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 have to middle youth voices and views – we can not meet our objectives with out understanding what younger folks need and want from expertise.
Our assist for regulatory measures
Regulatory measures such because the EU Digital Companies 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:
- 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 danger or affect assessments to ship efficient mitigations for dangers to kids and younger folks within the design or operation of these companies.
- Clearly outlined harms and duties: The place proposals incorporate an obligation of care to handle potential harms to kids, we encourage policymakers to offer readability on what’s required to discharge these duties and to obviously outline the harms at challenge, primarily based on scientific analysis.
- End result-based approaches: To allow a service-specific strategy that helps the rights and greatest pursuits of the kid, we welcome regulatory approaches that target guaranteeing the methods and processes are in place to mitigate danger and construct in improved privateness protections for youngsters and teenagers.
- 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 offer 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 folks.
