June 05, 2024
09:45 AM - 05:30 PM
41 Quai du Président Roosevelt, 92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France
Speakers
Agenda
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FOSI 2024 European Forum

Overview

A Transatlantic Dialogue

On Wednesday, June 5th, the Family Online Safety Institute hosted its 2024 European Forum, “A Transatlantic Dialogue,” Microsoft’s offices in Paris.

This event brought together key government leaders and regulators working to advance online safety, to discuss international regulatory developments. We featured a series of insightful panels, fireside chats, and networking opportunities, aiming to foster a comprehensive understanding of the current landscape and future directions of online safety across the globe.

Attendees had the opportunity to engage in dynamic discussions and panel sessions throughout the day featuring some of the foremost experts in the field:

  • International Government Leaders & Regulators: Prominent figures shared their insights on advancing online safety through effective policy and regulatory measures.
  • Parenting Experts: Leading professionals provided practical tips and tools for parents navigating the complexities of raising children in a digital age.
  • Industry Leaders: Representatives from top tech companies discussed their latest innovations in online safety, including new products, features, and educational strategies.
  • Expert Researchers: Researchers presented their recent findings, offering data-driven insights and trends that can inform future policy, parenting practices, and industry standards.

Additionally, the event included a featured fireside chat entitled, “Lessons from a Facebook Whistleblower,” in which Arturo Béjar, the former Director of Engineering at Facebook, shared his experiences working in big tech and discussed what the industry can do better to prioritize the well-being of teens online. 

The FOSI 2024 European Forum provided valuable insights, promoted informed collaboration, and fostered meaningful dialogue among stakeholders dedicated to improving online safety across sectors and borders.

Recordings of each session are available on FOSI’s YouTube channel.

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Event Save the Date flyer for download.

 

 

Speakers

Charlotte Aynsley

Charlotte has a broad range of experience in the field of digital safeguarding - for 10 years she led Becta's advice and support to Government, local authorities and schools on keeping children safe online. She also worked with Dr Tanya Byron on her review of Safer Children in a Digital World - leading the implementation and co-ordination of the education recommendations in the Review as part of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS).

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.

Arturo Béjar

Dad of two great kids. Arturo Béjar was the engineering and product leader at Facebook responsible for its efforts to keep users safe from 2009 to 2015. This included starting the "Protect and Care" team which did groundbreaking work on helping teens deal with online bullying, suicidal ideation, child safety, and other challenges inherent to life online. From 2019 to 2021, Béjarreturned to the company as a consultant to assist with well-being at Instagram, and found that leadership team did not prioritize the well-being or reduction of harms to teens, which led to his whistleblowing in 2023.

Bojana Bellamy

Bojana is the President of Hunton Andrews Kurth's Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL), a preeminent global privacy and data policy think tank in London, Washington, DC, and Brussels. Bojana works with global business and technology leaders, regulators, policy and law makers to shape global data policy and practice and develop thought leadership and best practices for privacy and responsible data use. Politico nominated Bojana in its inaugural 2021 Tech28 list of top people influencing digital policy in Europe and beyond. In 2019 Bojana received the IAPP Vanguard Award, which recognizes privacy professionals for outstanding leadership, knowledge and creativity. With over 25 years of experience in privacy and data policy and compliance, including former global privacy head at Accenture for 12 years, she sits on several industry and regulatory advisory boards and panels, including Mercedes-Benz Advisory Board for Integrity and Sustainability and the UK Government's Expert Council for International Data Flows.

Lionel Benatia

Lionel joins us from Amazon, where he led the Public Policy team in France for AWS since 2017. During his tenure, he played a pivotal role in shaping the political narrative on cloud computing in France, establishing robust alliances, and adeptly addressing the challenges arising from the growing concerns of sovereignty in the country. With over two decades of experience, Lionel will bring a wealth of expertise garnered not only during his tenure at Amazon but also from his roles at BlaBlaCar or in various consulting firms, such as FTI Consulting, Vae Solis Corporate or Burson Marsteller. Throughout his career, he has effectively represented the interests of numerous companies and provided strategic counsel to prominent multinational corporations in navigating engagements with French policymakers. 

Tami Bhaumik

Tami Bhaumik is the Vice President of Civility and Partnerships at Roblox where she spearheads the platform's digital civility initiative and works to foster a global community of internet safety leaders to ensure good digital citizenship on Roblox. To establish a healthy and safe community, Tami is focused on providing kids, teens, parents, and caregivers with skills needed to create positive online experiences, in partnership with the world's leading safety and industry organizations. At Roblox, she empowers platform users to self-govern and create a confident, resilient online community with the knowledge and tools to create positive experiences for themselves and others in the metaverse.

Mindy Brooks

Mindy is the General Manager for Google's kids and family initiative. Mindy and her team work to create safe and enriching experiences for children, teens and their families globally. Responsible for creating Googlewide strategic agendas, Mindy has also been instrumental in launching many products such as Google Accounts for kids under 13, Family Link, the Teacher Approved program on Google Play, and Android's first kid directed product, Google Kids Space. Prior to Google, Mindy worked at Netflix and Sesame Street, most recently as Director of Content and Innovation Research. Mindy holds a BA in Psychology and a MA in Applied Developmental and Educational psychology from New York University.

Julia Cooke

Julia Cooke (she/her) is an International Policy Manager at the UK's regulator for online safety, Ofcom. Julia's work focuses on international regulatory dialogue, promoting coherence and capability across international approaches. Ofcom aims to learn from, and share regulatory experiences with the global community that is developing online safety policy. As part of this work, Julia's areas of expertise include the protection of children, the Video Sharing Platform (VSP) regime, age assurance technologies and media literacy. Prior to joining Ofcom, Julia held a number of roles at the ICO (the UK's data protection authority), most recently as a Principal Policy Adviser. At the ICO, Julia worked on policy issues at the intersections of data, children's rights and emerging technologies which included the UK Children's code, the Commissioner's Opinion on age assurance, the best interests of the child guidance, educating children about their data protection rights and cowriting the position paper on digital identity. Julia previously worked in UK central government on digitising services and change management

Luc Delany

Chief Corporate Affairs Officer to k-ID, Luc Delany, works with policy makers, regulators and top safety organizations, to advance the company's mission worldwide. Luc is an internationally recognized public policy and regulatory affairs expert for the technology and video games industries. He has spent 20 years working internationally with the world's leading technology and gaming companies as a strategic advisor, both in-house at Google and Meta, and through his advisory firm, Delany & Co, established in 2013. Luc believes so passionately in k-ID's mission he left his own firm to join k-ID. He has been a leader in the gaming industry for over a decade, through his roles as CEO of the International Social Games Association (ISGA) and Chair of the Mobile Games Intelligence Forum (MGIF), both of which play key roles in regulatory development for online video games.Throughout his career, Luc has spoken and given testimony in Parliaments and in regulatory hearings around the world. He is a media commentator, regularly appearing on TV, Radio and in print.

Elizabeth Gosme

Elizabeth Gosme is mother of two girls and Director of COFACE Families Europe, a network of 50+ family organisations across 23 countries advocating for the rights of all families without discrimination through various tools: advocacy and campaigning at European Union level for strong social rights and gender-responsive family policies, building European research projects, developing practical tools to support parents, families, children. Based on its Digitalisation principles , 2030 Child Compass, and DigiGen research, COFACE works closely with the EU institutions, Better Internet for Kids, European Schoolnet and key ICT industries to promote child rights and safety online. This is done through a whole-family lens, advocating for regulation, self-regulation and education tools to empower children and their families in the digital environment. 

David Hunter

David Hunter is Vice President of Platform Trust & Safety at Resolver, a Kroll business. He has spent the past decade working closely with Trust & Safety teams, and applying those experiences to many of Resolver's Trust & Safety products. Today he leads Resolver's Platform Trust & Safety business unit, providing risk intelligence solutions for leading social media, gaming, media and entertainment companies to stay ahead of the ever-evolving set of risks that threaten user safety and platform integrity. He is a leading expert in OSINT, online harms and bad actor tradecraft. David is a passionate advocate for the protection of children online, speaking globally at events on innovations in safety tech.

Laura Lázaro Cabrera

Laura Lazaro Cabrera is Counsel and Director of the Equity and Data Programme at the Centre for Democracy and Technology Europe Office, where she leads the work promoting the effective protection of fundamental human rights in the implementation of European Union legislation regulating new technologies. Her work focusses on identifying the adverse impacts of artificial intelligence on human rights and the regulatory or policy gaps that enable them, while working closely with affected individuals or communities to map effective solutions. Laura has informed global stakeholders' approach to technology and data, notably contributing to the development of a position paper by ESCR-Net on Data for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the development of online modules on the ethics and governance of AI for health authored by the WHO. Laura comes to CDT with a robust background in privacy and data protection. Having worked as a senior legal officer at a leading international NGO, she has extensively engaged with governments, regulators and courts worldwide to challenge laws and practices in the context of unlawful surveillance.

Benoît Loutrel

Benoit Loutrel is board member of ARCOM, the French audiovisual and digital media regulator. He leads ARCOM's involvement in the implementation of the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) in France and actively participates in the work of the board of Digital Services, where the EU Commission and the 26 member states' regulators coordinate together the implementation of the DSA across the EU. Benoit Loutrel has a background in regulatory economics and data sciences. Before being appointed board member of Arcom, he had previous experiences at the World Bank, the French Telecommunication regulator (ARCEP), Google and the French ministry of digital affairs.

Manuela Martra

Manuela Martra is Deputy Head of Unit Accessibility, Multilingualism & Safer Internet, in the Directorate for Data at the European Commission's Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology (DG CONNECT). She has worked for the EU institutions in Luxembourg for over 20 years, most of them devoted to support a safer and better internet for children. She is very committed to ensuring, through a multi-stakeholder approach, that citizens, in particular the most vulnerable ones, benefit in full from the digital transformation and Europe is a competitive and attractive continent.

Glenn Millard

Glenn Millard has been working with digital products and services for 15+ years, as a product and commercial leader at Vodafone, Heineken, and Amazon, where he's currently the Country Manager for Amazon Kids. He launched Amazon Kids and the first Fire Kids Tablet in the UK and Germany in 2015. Since then, adding the Kindle Kids, Fire Kids Pro, Echo Dot Kids, and Echo Show Kids to the portfolio. Glenn is passionate about kids' content and services and loves sharing new products with his toughest customers, and part-time beta testers, his two young daughters.

Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov

Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov is the founder of Digital Parenting Coach.com, a resource for parents and caregivers.

Pascale Raulin-Serrier

Pascale Raulin-Serrier holds a postgraduate degree in European Community Law (Pantheon-Sorbonne University) and joined the French Data Protection Authority (the CNIL) in 2005 at the European and international affairs Department. Pascale has been working since 2012 as an expert in the CNIL's Digital Education Unit for the development of collaborative projects targeted towards children, Youth and teachers. Pascale is currently addressing awareness workshops and training activities on privacy best practices. She has been leading for ten years the GPA (Global Privacy Assembly) international working group of 80 Regulators aiming at fostering capacity building, sharing resources in privacy matters and promoting children's rights in the digital environment. Pascale has worked on the adoption of several GPA Resolutions in Digital Privacy Education, on e-learning platforms, on Children's digital rights, and a Personal Data Protection Competency framework for school students, Pascale also works as a member of the Council of Europe's expert group on Digital Citizenship Education.

Valiant Richey

Valiant Richey is the Global Head of Outreach and Partnerships for Trust & Safety at TikTok. He leads a team that oversees external engagement, transparency initiatives, and user empowerment programs to enhance safety on the platform. Prior to this role, Val spent five years at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe as Special Representative for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings. Before joining the OSCE, he served for thirteen years as a prosecutor in the United States handling sexual assault, child exploitation and human trafficking cases. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in political science from Boston University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Washington.

Paul Schmite

Paul Schmite is deputy to the ambassador for digital affairs of France, Henri Verdier. After working at Etalab, a department of the Prime Minister responsible for the opening up of public data and the use of artificial intelligence in government, Paul Schmite joined the office of Cedric O, Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, to work on the digital transformation of the French administration. Paul Schmite joined the office of the ambassador for digital affairs in 2022 and works to strengthen France's digital diplomacy on online safety issues (combating online terrorism, disinformation and the dangers to children online). Paul Schmite is a graduate of the Ecole Nationale d'Administration, Université Paris-Dauphine and the London School of Economics.  

Emily Slifer

Emily Slifer is the Director of Policy at Thorn, a non-profit organization that builds technology to defend children from online child sexual abuse. Prior to joining Thorn she worked for the UK Home Office in the British Embassy Washington. During this time she covered a wide portfolio that include child sexual abuse and exploitation, extradition, immigration, and science & technology. She has also worked in the European Parliament for the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET), the European Parliament Liaison Office in Washington, DC, and Centro UNESCO di Firenze. She has a MA in European Union Policy Studies.

Liz Thomas

* Denotes member of FOSI Board As part of Microsoft's Digital Safety Office, Liz Thomas leads on Public Policy and Partnerships, focused on empowering every person to have a safe and trusted digital experience across Microsoft's products and services. In her role, Liz coordinates global engagement on digital safety issues, including on regulatory measures, and supports work to address illegal and harmful content online. She also works with policymakers, companies, and organizations to integrate multistakeholder perspectives on digital safety and drive digital safety initiatives. Before joining Microsoft in April 2020, Liz held policy and legal roles in the New Zealand government, including at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Liz graduated from the University of Otago with Bachelor's degrees in Arts and Law and has a Master's degree in International Relations from the Australian National University. 

David Wright

David is CEO at SWGfL and a Director UK Safer Internet Centre; the national awareness centre and part of the European Insafe network. David has worked extensively in online safety for over 20 years with children, schools and wider agencies. He advises a number of Governments, organisations and industry partners on online safety strategy and policy and has been appointed as an expert child online protection adviser to the UN ITU and nominated by UK Government as an expert to the Council of Europe Tech Facilitated Gender Based Violence committee. David has presented at conferences nationally and internationally. He is a member of UK Council for Internet Safety and has recently been invited to be a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Coalition for Digital Safety. David has led the creation of a number of Helplines that directly and indirectly support victims of online harm, perhaps most notably the Revenge Porn Helpline in 2015 that supports adults who are victims of non consensual intimate image (NCII) abuse. Consequentially, David has overseen the development of StopNCII.org, the worlds first device side hashing technology that empowers adults who experience NCII to prevent their images being shared online. David has led pioneering work, such as the development of multi award winning resources, and with Plymouth University, he has published a number of ground-breaking research reports. 

Steven Vosloo

Steven Vosloo is a technology, policy and innovation specialist at UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight. He works at the intersection of children, emerging tech, foresight and policy, covering issues such as children and AI, digital disinformation, the metaverse, neurotechnology and digital equality. With over 20 years' experience in innovating digital technologies for social good he has been head of mobile in the Innovation Lab, Pearson South Africa, led the mobile learning programme at UNESCO and held the prestigious fellowship for 21st Century Learning at the Shuttleworth Foundation.

Agenda

9:45 AM – 10:30 AM: Registration & Light Breakfast
 

10:30 AM – 10:40 AM: Welcome Remarks

  • Lionel Benatia, Microsoft
  •  Tami Bhaumik, Roblox & FOSI Board Chair  
     

10:40 AM – 11:30 AM: Good Digital Parenting: Ages and Stages

Parenting in the digital age is no simple feat. Parents and caregivers frequently share that they are overwhelmed as they navigate complicated parental controls and keep up with the many different apps and platforms that their children are using daily. While improvements have been made to parental controls and online safety tools in recent years, much more needs to be done. This panel discussed raising tech-savvy kids at different ages and developmental stages and share some of the most helpful tips, tools, and practices to empower and build confidence in parents as they approach technology with their children.

  •  Charlotte Aynsley, FOSI & Digital Safeguarding Consultant (moderator)
  • Elizabeth Gosme, COFACE Families Europe
  • Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov, DIgital Parenting Coach
  • Pascale Raulin-Serrier, CNIL
  • Valiant Richey, TikTok
     

11:30 AM – 12:20 PM: Innovations in Online Safety Solutions

We are experiencing exponential rates of change in technology. With the proliferation of parental controls on platforms, the meteoric rise of genAI, and the expansion of products focused on safety, it can be hard to keep up. These speakers discussed how their companies innovate in the online safety space, through the development of new products and features, advanced technologies, and strategies to more effectively educate their users.

  • Tami Bhaumik, Roblox & FOSI Board Chair (moderator)
  • Mindy Brooks, Google
  • Luc Delany, k-ID
  • David Hunter, Resolver
  • Glenn Millard, Amazon Kids

 
12:20 PM – 1:20 PM: Networking Luncheon
 

1:20 PM – 2:10 PM: Data, Trends & Evidence: What the Research is Telling Us

Experts discussed their latest research into the risks, harms, and rewards of digital life. With a plethora of ideas for improving online safety, it is important to highlight policy and product proposals that are evidence-based. This panel presented and discussed a range of recent work, shared insightful data and trends, and discussed how their findings might inform policy, parenting, and industry best practices moving forward. 

  • Bojana Bellamy, Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL)
  • Julia Cooke, Ofcom (moderator)
  • Emily Slifer, Thorn
  • Liz Thomas, Microsoft
  • Steven Vosloo, UNICEF Innocenti
     

 2:10 PM – 2:15 PM Google/FOSI Announcement

  • Stephen Balkam, FOSI
  • Mindy Brooks, Google


2:15 PM – 2:35 PM: Tea Break


2:35 PM – 3:35 PM: From the DSA to the USA: A Transatlantic Dialogue

Europe continues to advance world-leading laws and regulations that have and will continue to shape the internet and our online lives. From data privacy and industry competition to more recent work on digital services and AI, the EU has significantly regulated the internet. This panel shared their first-hand experience creating and implementing such regulation, as well as breaking down the impact on platforms and real users, and examined how other countries have reacted.

  • Laura Lazaro Cabrera, Center for Democracy and Technology Europe
  • Benoît Loutrel, ARCOM Board Member
  • Manuela Martra, European Commission, DG CONNECT
  • Paul Schmite, Office of the Ambassador for Digital Affairs
  • David Wright, SWGfL
     

3:35 PM – 4:15 PM: Fireside Chat: Lessons From a Facebook Whistleblower

Arturo Béjar, the former Director of Engineering at Facebook, shared his experiences working in big tech and discussed what the industry can do better to prioritize the well-being of teens online.

  • Arturo Béjar, Fmr. Director, Engineering, Facebook
  • Stephen Balkam, FOSI
     

4:15 PM – 4:20 PM: Closing Remarks

  • Stephen Balkam, FOSI
     

4:20 PM – 5:30 PM: Reception

 

Please note, all times listed are CEST, local to Paris, France. Timing, speakers, and content of the agenda is subject to change.