White House touts federal action to protect children online
The White House on Monday unveiled a range of efforts across the federal government to protect children’s privacy and safety online, an announcement that comes amid a recent surge in image-based sexual abuse fueled by artificial intelligence.
Multiple agencies are looking at how they might respond to threats that children face online, according to an Office of Science and Technology Policy release, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is planning to assess new ways to estimate and verify ages online and has created a new evaluation system for age estimation algorithms. Additionally, the Department of Education released guidance on AI and education technologies to help inform nondiscriminatory uses of the emerging tech.
“What’s happening in the online environment today is something that happens every time we encounter and create powerful technologies,” OSTP Director Arati Prabhakar said during Monday’s White House event. “They always come with a bright side and a dark side.”
The bright side, Prabhakar said, includes the benefits of fostering positive online environments for children within marginalized communities, such as the LGBTQIA+ community. The risks, she said, include issues around children’s online privacy and safety, such as cyberbullying and the collection of information about kids by companies and the sending of targeted messages.
Some of those issues were raised in the Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force’s final report, which was also released Monday. The group, which includes federal agency representatives and members of the executive office of the president, calls in its report for bipartisan legislation and engaging in international efforts to collaborate on online safety, in addition to offering other information to the public.
Other recent federal efforts to protect children online include a Federal Trade Commission announcement this month that it would ban a company from offering anonymous messaging apps to anyone under 18 and “halt deceptive claims around AI content moderation,” per an agency release. The FTC is also working to update rules on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act to address potential threats to children’s privacy posed by new and emerging tech, according to the White House release.
Other agencies involved in efforts toward keeping children safe online that were noted Monday include the National Institutes of Health, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
