2022 European Forum
Overview
Online Safety: A Transatlantic View
Recordings from our European Forum are available on the FOSI YouTube Channel.
On Thursday, 23rd June, the Family Online Safety Institute hosted its 2022 European Forum, entitled “Online Safety: A Transatlantic View.” It was our first in-person event since 2019 and was hosted by Google, with additional sponsorship and support provided by TikTok and Yoti. The event aimed to capture multiple perspectives on the online safety landscape between the US, UK, and Europe.
The day opened with remarks from Stephen Balkam (FOSI) and Markham Cho Erickson (Google); who spoke to both the opportunities and challenges that technology presents, and announced Google’s sponsorship of FOSI’s upcoming research on age assurance. Baroness Beeban Kidron OBE, Founder of the 5Rights Foundation, delivered a keynote address on the mandate of responsibility, the balance of rights and access, and setting high standards for how parents, policymakers and companies can do better. She discussed the necessity of translating children’s rights into the digital world, how governments must work together to set a minimum floor for online safety, and how industry must push to innovate both safer and more private solutions to children’s online safety.
The first panel of the day, “Can We Regulate Online Safety?” was moderated by Julie Dawson (Yoti), and featured panelists Martin Drechsler (FSM), Alexandra Evans (TikTok), Fred Langford (Ofcom), and Sonia Livingstone (London School of Economics). The discussion covered high level points such as the intersection of privacy and safety online and attempts by governments and industry to balance free speech and expression with creating safe online environments for all populations, especially children and teens, as well as more specific examples of industry self-regulation and safety by design principles.
The forum’s second panel, “Making Age Assurance a Reality,” was moderated by Stephen Balkam, and featured panelists Asha Allen (CDT), Iain Corby (Age Verification Providers Association), Almudena Lara (Google), Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov (The LEGO Group), and Dr. Rachel O’Connell (TrustElevate). The panel discussed the advantages and disadvantages of age assurance practices including verifiable parental consent, and the delicate balance that is needed between the protection of minors, the proportionality of risk and data minimization, and the importance of child rights. This conversation explored what would make for a holistic approach to age assurance in regards to industry, regulators, users, and other stakeholders.
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Speakers
Asha Allen
Asha Allen serves as Advocacy Director for Europe, Online Expression & Civic Space at CDT Europe Office in Brussels, where she leads our work on issues at the intersection of online expression, civic engagement, and technology.
Stephen Balkam
For the past 30 years, Stephen Balkam has had a wide range of leadership roles in the nonprofit sector in the both the US and UK. He is currently the Founder and CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), an international, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, DC. FOSI's mission is to make the online world safer for kids and their families.
Markham Cho Erickson
Markham leads Google's Centers of Excellence—a global team of subject matter experts focused on the application of law and policy to technology and the Internet. The CoE is a hub for strategy and expertise on the global government affairs and public policy issues affecting Google's business today and in the future.
Iain Corby
Iain is the Executive Director of the global trade body for the suppliers of age assurance technology, and project manager for the euCONSENT programme, delivering interoperable age checks and a mechanism for parental consent across the EU/EEA/UK. He read PPE at Balliol College, Oxford, has an MBA from UCLA and has previously worked as a management consultant for Deloitte, led a research team in the UK Parliament, and been deputy CEO of the leading UK charity GambleAware. He sits on the UK Information Commissioner's Children Advisory Panel, and is founder of SafetyTech Limited advising clients in a number of industries on a wide-range of online compliance matters.
Julie Dawson
Julie leads regulatory and government relations, steers ethics framework development liaising closely with the Yoti Guardians Council, and prepares Yoti for external accreditations - such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, BCorps for ethics and transparency and the SOC2 security accreditation.Yoti is an identity checking system that allows organisations to verify who people are, online and in person. Yoti has a team of over 300 based in London, with offices in Mumbai and present in the US, Canada and Australia. We count over 11 million installs of the Yoti app, following our launch in November 2017. For consumers, it's an app that helps them prove who they are and confirm the identities of others. We distinguish ourselves with our approach to privacy and security; the system has been architected so that it's impossible for us to monetise users personal data.Julie serves on a number of Boards - WEF Digital Identity Innovators & Global Coalition for Digital Safety, member of the IEEE Children's Advisory Group, the OSTIA Online Safety Tech Industry Association and the techUK digital identity and Public Sector Board.
Martin Drechsler
Martin Drechsler has been Managing Director of the FSM (Association for Voluntary Self-Regulation of Digital Media Service Providers) since 2016.
Alexandra Evans
Alexandra is Director of Safety Public Policy for Europe.
Baroness Beeban Kidron OBE
Baroness Kidron is a Crossbench Peer in the UK House of Lords and Chair of 5Rights Foundation. After 30 years as an award-winning film director, Kidron was appointed to the House of Lords where she has been a world leading advocate for digital regulation and accountability, most particularly in relation to children and young people under the age of 18. She is best known as the architect of the Age Appropriate Design Code, which prompted a radical redesign of digital products and services to protect the safety and privacy of children.
Fred Langford
Fred is Director of Trust and Safety Technology UK Communications Regulator Ofcom, a Visiting Professor at University of Suffolk, Visiting Professional Fellow at Aston University, member of the REPHRAIN (Bristol University) and INHOPE (International Hotline Association) Advisory Boards. Fred is also a Non-Exec Director.
Almudena Lara
Almudena is the global lead on child safety public policy at Google, where she leads work on protecting children from child sexual abuse and exploitation and providing safe experiences to children across products. She joined Google from the NSPCC, the UK's largest child protection charity, where she led the public policy team and championed key legal reform to ensure better protections for children. Almudena is a Board member at the Tech Coalition, a cross industry collaboration to drive critical advances in technology and adoption of best practices for keeping children safe online, and chairs the INHOPE Network advisory board to support advancements in awareness and reporting of child sexual abuse material.
Sonia Livingstone
Sonia Livingstone DPhil (Oxon), OBE, FBA, FBPS, FAcSS, FRSA, is a professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov
Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov is the founder of Digital Parenting Coach.com, a resource for parents and caregivers.
Dr. Rachel O’Connell
Dr. Rachel O'Connell, founder & CEO of TrustElevate, a child age verification and parental consent provider.Agenda
JUNE 23, 2022
9 AM
Registration, Breakfast, & Networking
10 AM
Opening Remarks
- Stephen Balkam, FOSI
10:05 AM
Welcome Remarks
- Markham Cho Erickson, Google
10:10 AM
Keynote Speech
- Baroness Beeban Kidron, OBE, 5Rights Foundation
10:40 AM
Plenary Panel – “Can We Regulate Online Safety?”
Recent online safety regulations and proposed policies in the UK and EU have changed how the online products and platforms we use every day operate and what they look like. This plenary panel discussed how Europe became a global leader in regulating online safety while the US has yet to pass any of its tech regulation proposals. With experts and leaders in industry, government, and civil society, this panel closely examined the significant similarities and drastic differences between these transatlantic policies and how to best improve online safety through regulation.
- Julie Dawson, Yoti (Moderator)
- Martin Drechsler, FSM
- Alexandra Evans, TikTok
- Fred Langford, Ofcom
- Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics
11:40 AM
Networking & Refreshments Break
11:55 AM
Plenary Panel – “Making Age Assurance a Reality”
As governments begin to require online platforms and services to offer age-appropriate content and experiences, a fundamentally important and complicated question arises: how do companies know how old their users are? Age assurance and verification are at the nexus of creating safe and appropriate online experiences for all users while attempting to minimize data collection and processing. This expert panel explored some of the top age assurance techniques as they discussed the best practices and tradeoffs of establishing safe, engaging, age-appropriate experiences for users.
- Stephen Balkam, FOSI (Moderator)
- Asha Allen, Center for Democracy & Technology, Europe
- Iain Corby, Age Verification Providers Association
- Almudena Lara, Google
- Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov, The LEGO Group
- Dr. Rachel O’Connell, TrustElevate
12:55 PM
Closing Remarks
1:00 PM
Networking Lunch