Youth Safety on a Living Internet: Report of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group
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YOUTH SAFETY ON A LIVING INTERNET: REPORT OF THE ONLINE SAFETY AND TECHNOLOGY WORKING GROUP JUNE 4, 2010 To: The Honorable Lawrence E. Strickling Assistant Secretary of Commerce The Honorable John D. Rockefeller IV, Chairman Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation The Honorable Kathryn Ann Bailey Hutchison, Ranking Member Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation The Honorable John F. Kerry, Chairman Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet The Honorable John Ensign, Ranking Member Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet The Honorable Henry Waxman, Chairman House Committee on Energy and Commerce The Honorable Joe Barton, Ranking Member House Committee on Energy and Commerce The Honorable Rick Boucher, Chairman House Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet The Honorable Cliff Stearns, Ranking Member House Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet From: Hemanshu Nigam, Co-Chair Online Safety and Technology Working Group Anne Collier, Co-Chair Online Safety and Technology Working Group Date: June 4, 2010 On behalf of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group (OSTWG), we are pleased to transmit this report to you. As mandated, we reviewed and evaluated: 1. The status of industry efforts to promote online safety through educational efforts, parental control technology, blocking and filtering software, age-appropriate labels for content or other technologies or initiatives designed to promote a safe online environment for children; 2. The status of industry efforts to promote online safety among providers of electronic communications services and remote computing services by reporting apparent child pornography, including any obstacles to such reporting; 3. The practices of electronic communications service providers and remote computing service providers related to record retention in connection with crimes against children; and 4. The development of technologies to help parents shield their children from inappropriate material on the Internet. The report contains recommendations in each of the above categories, as well some general recommendations. We believe these recommendations will further advance our collective goal to provide a safer online experience to our children. We would like to personally thank the support of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and its staff during this process. Their assistance throughout the past year was invaluable in allowing us to execute on our mandate. We would also like to recognize the leadership of our subcommittee chairs, Christopher Bubb, Larry Magid, Michael McKeehan, and Adam Thierer – each worked diligently to bring much consensus into the final report. We also want to thank the OSTWG members for the tremendous effort they put into their work all the while doing it in a most collaborative fashion. And finally, we would like to recognize the insight offered by representatives from the White House, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission. As co-chairs we have been honored to have led the OSWTG on this journey, and we all look forward to working with you in bringing these recommendations to life – our nation’s youth deserve no less. //// THE ONLINE SAFETY AND TECHNOLOGY WORKING GROUP CO-CHAIRS Anne Collier Co-Director ConnectSafely.org President Net Family News, Inc. Hemanshu Nigam Founder SSP Blue Formerly Chief Security Officer News Corporation MEMBERS Parry Aftab, Esq. Founder and Executive Director WiredSafety.org Elizabeth Banker Vice President and General Counsel Yahoo! Inc. Christopher Bubb Assistant General Counsel, Public Safety and Criminal Investigations AOL Braden Cox Policy Counsel NetChoice Coalition Caroline Curtin Policy Counsel, Federal Affairs Microsoft Brian Cute Vice President, Discovery Services Afilias Jeremy S. Geigle President Arizona Family Council Marsali Hancock President Internet Keep Safe Coalition Michael Kaiser Executive Director National Cyber Security Alliance Online Safety and Technology Working Group v Christopher M. Kelly Formerly Chief Privacy Officer and Head of Global Policy Facebook Brian Knapp Chief Operating Officer Loopt Hedda Litwin Cyberspace Law Counsel National Association of Attorneys General Timothy M. Lordan Executive Director and Counsel Internet Education Foundation Larry Magid Co-Director ConnectSafely.org Brian Markwalter Vice President of Technology and Standards Consumer Electronics Association Michael W. McKeehan Executive Director, Internet and Technology Policy Verizon Samuel C. McQuade III Associate Professor Rochester Institute of Technology Orit H. Michiel Vice President and Domestic Counsel Motion Picture Association of America John Morris General Counsel Center for Democracy and Technology Jonathan Nevett Vice President of Policy and Ethics Network Solutions, LLC Jill L. Nissen Formerly, Vice President, Chief Policy Officer Ning, Inc. Jay Opperman Senior Director of Security and Privacy Comcast Corporation Kevin Rupy Director of Policy Development USTelecom vi Online Safety and Technology Working Group John Shehan Executive Director, Exploited Child Division National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Dane Snowden Vice President, External and State Affairs CTIA – The Wireless Association Adam Thierer President Progress and Freedom Foundation Patricia E. Vance President Entertainment Software Rating Board Ralph James Yarro III Founder, President, and CEO Think Atomic, Inc. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES Paul R. Almanza Deputy Chief Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section Criminal Division Department of Justice Robert Cannon Senior Counsel for Internet Law Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis Federal Communications Commission Cheryl Petty Garnette Director Technology in Education Programs Office of Innovation and Improvement Department of Education Nat Wood Assistant Director Division of Consumer and Business Education Bureau of Consumer Protection Federal Trade Commission Online Safety and Technology Working Group vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary 1 Subcommittee on Internet Safety Education 11 Addendum A 34 Addendum B 49 Subcommittee on Parental Controls & Child Protection Technology 55 Addendum A 68 Subcommittee on Child Pornography Reporting 85 Addendum A 92 Addendum B 94 Addendum C 96 Subcommittee on Data Retention 100 Appendix A: Acknowledgements A1 Appendix B: Agendas of OSTWG Meetings A2 Appendix C: Statements of OSTWG Members A7 viii Online Safety and Technology Working Group EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Internet is a living thing. It mirrors and serves as a platform for a spectrum of humanity’s lives, sociality, publications and productions. And as with all living things, its current state is guided and molded by the years of evolution it has gone through to reach its current place in our society. Tasked with the goal of examining the safety of this dynamic medium, the Online Safety and Technology Working Group (OSTWG) embraced its mission mindful of the great amount of work done before it. We approached our task with open eyes and open minds, while at the same time remaining aware of the many efforts that had gone before us, many of which individual OSTWG members had participated in. Still, we were determined to take our combined knowledge and insights gained over the past year to shed new light on the issues reflected in our recommendations to you. The OSTWG was fortunate to have representatives from nearly every facet of the child online safety ecosystem represented. Members came from the Internet industry, child safety advocacy organizations, educational and civil liberties communities, the government, and law enforcement communities. Collectively, we brought to our work more than 250 years of experience in online safety from a spectrum of varying perspectives. We hope the set of recommendations we are delivering to you here will leave an indelible mark on the online experiences of our country’s children as they evolve into adults in this digital century. The OSTWG was established by the “Broadband Data Improvement Act” (the Act), Pub. L. No. 110–385. Section 214 of the Act, which was signed into law on October 10, 2008, mandated the NTIA to create the OSTWG, bringing this group together to focus on four different components of online safety. Specifically, the OSTWG was established to review and evaluate: • The status of industry efforts to promote online safety through educational efforts, parental control technology, blocking and filtering software, age-appropriate labels for content or other technologies or initiatives designed to promote a safe online environment for children; • The status of industry efforts to promote online safety among providers of electronic communications services and remote computing services by reporting apparent child pornography, including any obstacles to such reporting; • The practices of electronic communications service providers and remote computing service providers related to record retention in connection with crimes against children; and • The development of technologies to help parents shield their children from inappropriate material on the Internet. The Act specifies that the OSTWG must be comprised of up to 30 members who are ‘‘representatives of relevant sectors of the business community, public interest groups, and other appropriate