Searching for a child in a private world.
[Music]
[Applause]
there are some things you can’t unsee
i’ve worked in the field of child sexual
abuse for eight years
as part of the thorn team we build
technology to defend kids from sexual
abuse
so i’ve made personal decisions about
what i know
and what i sometimes have to see and i
work alongside
incredibly brave officers who have to
see the
unimaginable every day as they search
for these kids
i don’t need you to ever see it but i do
need you to know about it
and i’m going to share something with
you today that i’m carrying and i’m
going to give it to you
so that we carry it together for them
the kids who are very much a part of our
lives but are not part of this
conversation
what i’m about to share with you is hard
to hear
a few months ago law enforcement
contacted us about a case they were
working
it’s never a good sign when they reach
out to us directly
because it usually means that the abuse
is quite severe
and that was true in this instance
a father is raping his daughter
and putting the images and videos online
he is taking precautions to not get
caught
their one clue is they think it may be
in the u.s
his daughter looks to be about two or
three years old
for the purposes of our conversation
today
i think it’s important we give her a
name we’ll call her marie
marie is a human being
i have seen marie’s face it’s something
i will never
unsee right now
on march 21 2021
if every major tech platform ran marie’s
face
against their data the chances are they
would probably find her
in a non-abuse photo and that would end
this nightmare for marie but here’s why
this is such a challenging
conversation there are reasons
privacy reasons legal reasons even some
technical
reasons for why we can’t do that today
and intellectually i accept those
reasons
but it just doesn’t feel right
it doesn’t feel right because we as
adults have made certain
decisions while she as a child has
continued to be abused
when i meet marie in the future and she
sits across from me
and says did you do everything you could
to help me to find me
what would i say
we must fiercely guard our right to
privacy
it is incredibly important but we must
also fiercely guard one of our greatest
resources
our children we often say
you can be or you can have all these
three things
you can want more privacy online you can
want to protect children online
and you can use technology you don’t
have to choose i am here today to share
with you the idea
that privacy is a continuum
it’s not an all or nothing proposition
it’s not an on or off switch and if we
are wanting to create a world where we
have more privacy online
and protect kids we’re going to have to
strike that balance
and we’re going to have to work hard to
do it
i am sharing this with you today because
we are going to signal to you
the users of these technologies every
day
that you’re going to have to make
decisions along this continuum
as part of this process
people often say to us isn’t it obvious
that people can’t share child
pornography online and we call child
pornography
child sexual abuse material because that
is what it
actually is is the evidence or
documentation of a child’s abuse
and the answer right now is currently
yes
right now most companies can detect
child sexual abuse content
but as we move to more private
environments without the right technical
solutions
we may lose sight of it
how do we get here how has there been
such a strong swing towards privacy or
why has that happened
people are upset our privacy has been
violated and we’ve seen that play out in
so many ways in our lives over the last
few years
so in response to that companies are
making a major course correction
and they are trying to provide you the
user with more private environments
more secure environments more trusted
environments now
and that generally is a good thing it’s
a great thing
and it can be a great thing for kids too
if it’s doing things like
protecting their data not disclosing
their geolocation
etc however what’s not
often talked about in the privacy
conversation
is who loses out who isn’t protected
as in those private environments and i’m
going to use encryption
as an example encryption will absolutely
protect activists organizing against
oppressive regimes
and allow them to connect and organize
encryption will also protect someone
sharing marie’s abuse video with someone
else and encouraging others to abuse
children in the same way and it will
make it harder to find those kids
both realities are true
we have to acknowledge that instead of
trying
to only highlight one or the other
we’re gonna have to be smarter than that
and we’re gonna have to find that
balance where we can protect
both that’s the goal
what’s interesting about this
conversation is that defining children’s
rights
often lags behind that of adults
and you see this in in the history
a friend of mine who’s a human rights
lawyer said to me a few years ago
privacy is not always inherently good
for children
and i thought about this more children
are often abused in private spaces
thinking back on the days where child
abuse was something that happened in the
home that was for the family to figure
out and not discussed out in public
in fact it wasn’t until the 1960s here
in the us
when dr henry kent published a medical
paper called
the battered child which included x-rays
that demonstrated what physical child
abuse
looked like on child’s bodies that we
started to
use the term child abuse in conversation
before that it was thought of as
uncommon and not a regular
issue mandatory reporting laws
here in the united states so when
doctors teachers
caregivers social workers are are
asked to and have to report suspected
child abuse
didn’t come into place until the late
1970s here in the u.s
this is a relatively new field of
defining
child children’s rights separate of
their parents
and decades later as we’ve made progress
on this front
we’re going to have to do it all over
again in defining what children’s rights
are
in the online world and the really scary
thing is we’re really far behind
2020 taught and showed us so many things
but one of the things that made clear is
that children are living
on the internet we saw a 97
increase in online enticement reports
last year to the national center for
missing and exploited children
online enticement is when an adult will
befriend a child
and either groom them to perform a
sexual act
to extort them for a naked photo or even
to groom them to meet up in person to
abuse them
so we saw an uptick in these reports
last year
at the same time because children
weren’t out in the physical world
mandatory reports went down because kids
weren’t seeing doctors teachers social
workers coaches
other parents who might be able to
report suspected child abuse
so as kids became more isolated in the
physical world
they also became less protected in the
online world
that’s a pretty dangerous combination
so how are we going to do this how are
we going to define
children’s rights and how we’re going to
hold them
equal to everyone’s rights online and
strike that balance between
privacy and child protection well first
we’re going to need innovation
technology is a major character in this
story
and again i’ll use encryption as an
example
right now most companies can and have
been
successfully detecting child sexual
abuse content
on their platforms because they are not
encrypted
what’s happening now is as companies
move towards more private environments
we’re concerned that we might lose sight
of that abuse
you’ll actually see this play out in
conversation between abusers
where they’ll say don’t go to x platform
and try and groom a child there it’s not
secure
you will be caught isn’t that what we
want
don’t we want the internet to be a
hostile
environment for this kind of abuse so as
more environments move towards
encryption
companies will no longer be able to
detect child sexual abuse material
and this is where we’re really concerned
an example of this is facebook
they have been a super reporter for
years
to their credit they’ve looked for it
they’ve found it and they’ve reported it
they had over 20 million reports to the
national center for missing exploited
children last year
when facebook encrypts messenger at the
end of this year
close to 70 or what they estimate to be
around 70
of those reports will no longer be able
to be seen
that’s scary it’s also really important
to mention
that there are companies who’ve been
encrypted who have never searched for
this content
so how are we going to solve this what
is the solution
well it’s a technical problem it’s a
policy problem
it’s really just a good old-fashioned
problem that needs smart people to come
together
and figure out the answer and the good
news is there are technologists
and policy makers all over the world who
want to solve for this
if we are about to have a hotel orbit
around the moon in a few years time
we created five vaccines and under a
year to flight to fight a global
pandemic
we can absolutely figure out a way to
surgically detect child sexual abuse
content
in encrypted environments or in private
environments
the answer is not don’t encrypt
the answer is we’re going to have to
work harder to make that private
environment
safe for everyone
the second thing we’re going to need is
you you listening
where do you fall into all this where do
you come into play
well as i mentioned before we all want
more privacy online and we
saw this play out in market research
that we did last year where we
asked a swath of americans do you want
more privacy on the internet
and the vast majority said yes what was
really interesting is
as you dive into how that actually
plays out in real life there’s a
disconnect between
wanting privacy and realizing what that
means so we would also ask people
about encryption only 10 percent
responded saying they knew a lot about
encryption
24 with very little or somewhat
this decision of how you gain more
privacy on these
on this platforms has been made for you
without a full disclosure about what the
tradeoffs are
when you click a box to say yes i want
more privacy on this platform
you’re not thinking i’m making it harder
to find kids like marie
you’re thinking about protecting you and
your family
so until we’re open and honest about
the full spectrum of trade-offs that
happen here
we’re not going to find a solution
that’s balanced because i guarantee you
the solution is not sitting at one of
the either ends of this continuum
there’s a final point to make today
which is really important
which is that we believe in privacy for
all
including the children who are in the
images and videos
we must acknowledge that every time
marie’s
image or video is shared her privacy
is being violated by not
acknowledging that the privacy of the
children in these images and photos is
happening now
we are robbing them of their privacy as
a future adult
we know that these images and videos
will never
go away but we have to make the promise
to them that we will do
everything in our power that they not
see the light of day
they go on to haunt these kids for the
rest of their lives
trying to remove them and acknowledging
that that is a breach in their privacy
is the least we can do
so when i think back to if i were to
meet marie
in the future and she was to say
did you do everything you could
right now i would have to say no
and i’d say no because we haven’t done
the work
to figure out those balance solutions
it’s hard and it’s never been done
before
but we’re gonna have to do it
for me personally if i was using an
encrypted platform
i would be okay knowing that they’re
looking for child sexual abuse in that
environment
but i recognize that’s a controversial
thing for me to say
and i respect you if you disagree with
that or if that’s not true for you
but we have to have these open and
honest conversations if we’re going to
figure this out
because there is absolutely a world
where we can protect our privacy online
and we can find marie faster we just
have to build it
thank you
you