The Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society announced today the formation of a task force to “evaluate a broad range of existing and state-of-the-art online safety technologies, including a review of identity authentication tools to help sites enforce minimum age requirements.” I’ll admit that they’ve gathered an impressive group of participants, including NCMEC, Microsoft, Yahoo!, MySpace, Facebook and iKeepSafe. But I’m wondering when did it become a business’ responsibility to police the internet?
The task force will be preparing a report on current technologies to “provide a safer online experience for all internet users”. A report? Really? And it’s going to take a year to produce with quarterly updates.
I work at a technology company. Technology moves much faster than the speed of a report. By the time the report is finished, all of the technologies that are evaluated in it will have either advanced and morphed into something else, or been tossed by the wayside for a newer product.
I see two things that are wrong here. One, if companies are so concerned, they should be focusing their energies on creating new technologies to keep people safe. Not just talking about it.
And two, if they care about their users, why not focus their energies on helping people to learn how to be safe online? All the technology in the world can’t protect you if you blindly give out personal information online.
If it is the age verification technologies that they want to work on, include an educational component for parents. Kids are very knowledgeable about technology and the latest fads. Many parents aren’t comfortable enough with technology to be able to have an intelligent discussion with their children about what to do and not do. It’s not enough anymore to tell your children to not talk to strangers.
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