In recent years, various organizations and policymakers around the world have argued that encryption harms children by creating a barrier for law enforcement agencies that seek to identify the distribution of child abuse material.
However, the voices pointing to the positive role encryption plays in protecting kids online have not always been as loud. This means that discussions about how undermining encryption would unintentionally harm children are often lost in the debate. Since encryption is the norm, the protections it offers children and adults can be taken for granted.
On 21 October, organizations worldwide gathered at the 2024 Encryption Summit: Encrypt Today to Safeguard Tomorrow to celebrate how encryption makes us powerful, investigate the regulatory challenges facing encryption, and unite our community.
In our panel, Encryption: The Guardian (moderated by myself), we heard from online safety experts around the globe with backgrounds in academia, policy, and technology law. These diverse perspectives made for an engaging and thought-provoking conversation on encryption’s role in keeping children safe online.
Our panelists included Larry Magid, CEO of ConnectSafely; Dr. Sabine K. Witting, assistant professor for law and digital technologies at Leiden University; Dr. Ezequiel Passeron, director of educommunication at Faro Digital; Jessica Dickinson-Goodman, former board president for the Internet Society San Francisco Bay Area Chapter; and Dr. Mark Leiser, a regulatory theorist specializing in digital, legal, and platform regulation. These panelists brought their unique expertise together to lead a rich dialogue on the topic of pro-encryption child safety.
Pro-Encryption Child Safety: An Overview
Encryption is a tool that ensures privacy for all online users, including children. It enables users to keep their online identity and information private, accessible only to intended audiences.
Encryption enables children to exercise their right to privacy. It enables medical facilities, schools, and other legitimate organizations to store or transmit information about children securely.
However, some advocates view encryption solely as a barrier to effective law enforcement. In conversations about investigations of individuals engaging with child sexual abuse materials, encryption is often characterized as a technical barrier that interferes with child protection. This is an incredibly important issue, but it is not the full picture of the role encryption plays in the lives of young people.
We at The Internet Society recognize the need to look more deeply at the role of encryption in the lives of children and, over the past year, have facilitated discussions with child safety experts to learn and share.
We convened a series of expert dialogues that resulted in the publication of the white paper “Encryption is a Preventative Tool that Protects Children,” which sought to hone in on aspects of encryption that were largely missing from the larger political debate.
We also worked with the Global Encryption Coalition to publish the Parent’s Guide to Encryption, offering practical information and ways for families to work together to protect children’s privacy using encryption.
These interactions inspired our panel at the Encryption Summit, where we sought to elevate the discussions we had convened in private so that others could benefit from the insights gained.
Here are some key takeaways from the session:
We Can’t Take Away the Right to Privacy in the Name of Protection
Larry: “Lack of encryption might make it easier to prosecute crimes, but encryption helps prevent crimes, and given the choice between prosecuting and prevention, I would take prevention every time.”
The political conversation surrounding encryption for children almost always focuses on how undermining encryption would protect children from potential perpetrators. However, we must ask ourselves if this choice would put children at risk in other ways.
When encryption is violated, what new potential harms would we all face that encryption currently protects us against? What unique harms would children face?
Mark: “The relationship between privacy and safety then becomes undeniable. They are not two separate things; they are two sides of the same coin. Encryption keeps people safe. It serves as a key pillar for protecting individuals, in particular children, and other vulnerable members of society.”
Privacy for Children Must be Recognized by All
Jessica: “I think remembering that people in government are just people…they are going to be good, bad, ugly, and wonderful, just like any other person, and they don’t deserve special access to location, images, or communications just because it’s 2024.”
The point that no one inherently has a special right of access to children’s private information is important.
Anyone who gains access to encrypted information has the power to use and abuse that information.
Encryption is a function that empowers users to decide how they limit this access to protect themselves and their loved ones.
Children are Informed and Aware of Their Online Privacy Needs in Ways That Their Parents May Not Be
Ezequiel: “Youth are often alone in the digital world, with adults unaware of their practices and digital culture. So when a problem arises, they are not the people the young ones turn to for dialogue.”
Children and young people are often more educated on the technological tools that protect them than the adults deciding policy.
This requires us to take a pause in how we develop policies and procedures, understanding that when we put parents and/or older people in charge, we may be missing the current and emerging values and needs of young people.
Ezequiel: “It’s always been the adults’ responsibility to keep kids safe in a number of areas, but when it comes to online technology spaces, oftentimes, younger people are more informed, knowledgeable, and experienced than older people, so it really shifts the conversation and the dynamic for how to go about doing that work.”
The Polarizing Discussion Surrounding Encryption Can Prevent Us From Solving the Problems at Hand
Sabine: “The underlying forms of violence, abuse, and exploitation are exactly the same in the physical environment, so when you think about how to prevent and respond to these kinds of offenses, you need to really think broader and not just think digital space but really think the entire child protection system and how you can make that protection system stronger […] It is really important to come up with a holistic approach and not resort to techno-solutionism.”
When we think about ways to protect children online, we can’t rely solely on tech providers to solve societal problems, as there are other interventions that may be more effective and proportional.
We also need to look more deeply at the complexity of the problems we are trying to solve and consider all stakeholders who have the ability to address these problems at varying levels.
Young People Need a Seat at the Table; They Can Handle It
Larry: “It’s so important for those of us in the policy world to be talking to young people, and again, not making any presumptions as to what they might say, but giving them a seat at the table.”
Young people have so much to offer in speaking about their experiences, their values, and their concerns. We tend to take a more paternal approach with child-facing policies, rightly so when children are still finding their way.
However, in the space of privacy and protection online, young people can speak to their experiences in the ever-changing online space in ways that reflect their usage, bringing new insights.
The session’s panelists raised thought-provoking insights, contributing to an important, ongoing conversation about child safety online. We look forward to continuing to think and work through these multifaceted challenges while maintaining our goal for the Internet to be open, globally connected, secure, and trustworthy.
Everyone deserves a secure online experience, which is why we will continue to promote and defend encryption around the world. Donate today to support more work like this.
Image © Thomas Park on Unsplash