SafeTeens.com

California Attorney General Kamala Harris announces app privacy deal (Credit: California Department of Justice)

On Wednesday, California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced an agreement with Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Hewlett-Packard, and Research In Motion that would require app developers to abide by California’s existing privacy law.  That deal, according to CNET news, “will require developers to include privacy policies in their apps so that users will be informed about the data that apps will access, use, and share before they download the apps.”

In a press release, the Attorney General’s office said that agreement brings the industry “in line with a California law requiring mobile apps that collect personal information to have a privacy policy.”

To learn more about the deal, Larry spoke by phone with Ms. Harris shortly after the announcement.

Listen here

Read more on my CNET blog

by Larry Magid

OK, I’m going to say it — mobile phone apps are scary. Sure, they do a lot of very cool things, but when it comes to violating personal privacy, I’m afraid to say “there’s an app for that.”

This reality became incredibly clear a couple of weeks ago when it was revealed that a popular social networking app called Path was routinely uploading users’ address books to the company’s servers without informing the user or asking permission. Path quickly acknowledged the practice, apologized and issued a new version that asks for permission before uploading user data.

It’s impossible for me to know for sure whether forgetting to ask the user’s permission was an oversight or deliberate, and I question whether issuing an apology and fixing the problem after the fact is an adequate remedy. We don’t let bank robbers off the hook if they apologize for the crime and promise never to do it again. Should we afford that leniency to companies who steal our personal information?

Path isn’t the only company to upload user address book data, but most — including Facebook and Twitter — tell users in advance or give them a chance to opt in or out.

What scares me about mobile apps is that they’re kind of a black box. We install them, giving them all sorts of permissions, yet we have no way of peering under their hoods to see what they’re doing.

I’m not trying to spread paranoia. I really do believe that most companies try to play by the rules, but with more than 500,000 iOS (iPhone and iPad) apps and nearly 400,000 Android apps, it’s hard not to imagine that a few companies are going to be fast and loose with the rules. Even reputable companies can slip up, be hacked or otherwise leak our personal data.

I’m not suggesting we go backward, but there are some things you can do to protect yourself. For one, it’s a good idea to read reviews and ratings for any app you want to download. When you install an app, pay close attention to the permissions it asks you to give it. If it asks to know your location, make sure there is a good reason for it. If it lets you share that information with others, be careful who you’re sharing with and review it periodically to make sure that the friend is still a friend.

Finally, don’t forget to lock your phone.

The recent revelations that some iPhone and Android apps are uploading and storing users’ phone address books without permission is very troubling. It not only violates the privacy of the person using the phone but, potentially, everyone in that person’s address book. (Read more on LarrysWorld.com)

One of my talks at Russia’s Safer Internet Day conference, focusing on the role of filters in protecting children:

;

This post appeared in the San Jose Mercury News on February 13, 2012

by Larry Magid

I’m writing from Moscow, where I spoke at Russia’s Safer Internet Day conference last week. Safer Internet Day, which originated in Europe, is celebrated in much of the world, though there are relatively few events in the United States.

While most recent American Internet safety conferences focus on digital citizenship issues such as preventing cyberbullying, most speakers at the Russian event talked about protecting children from undesirable content. There was, however, one panel on digital literacy where my ConnectSafely.org co-director Anne Collier talked about strategies for helping kids learn to treat each other respectfully and to protect their online reputations.

Russia is behind the United States and much of Europe in Internet usage, but it’s growing quickly. In 2009, the World Bank reported Internet penetration in the Russian Federation at 42 percent but the growth curve is impressive. In 2006, it was only 18 percent. One speaker at the conference said it’s now over 50 percent, with even higher usage among youth.

Still, the Internet is new to many people in this former Soviet capitol and it’s common to be afraid of things that are unfamiliar. So my main role as a speaker was to try to put some of the safety concerns into perspective.

I reminded delegates that there was a time when people bought short-term life insurance before they got on an airplane. Those passengers were probably less worried about their car crashing on the way to the airport, even though then, as now, driving was more dangerous than flying.

It’s a bit like that with technology. Bullying, pornography and child molestation have been around forever. But because widespread Internet use is new here, I heard politicians and others worrying aloud about the increased danger of the Net, even though American and European data show that most risks to kids are actually lower online than in the “real world,” and that sexual crimes against children have actually decreased by 58 percent between 1992 and 2008, the very years that huge numbers of U.S. kids got online. I’m not saying the Internet is the reason for the decline, but it certainly didn’t usher in any increase, as some feared it would.

One reason it’s important to put the fears into perspective is because there are lots of people in Russia, and in the United States as well, who want to put limits on Internet content in the name of protecting children. In fact, there is a law on the books in Russia that’s supposed to take effect in September that would require websites to classify themselves by age ratings so Internet service providers could block kids from content that would harm their “health and development.”

It’s not clear even to Internet professionals I spoke with here how this law is supposed to be implemented and whether it will apply just to Russian-based sites, or if ISPs will be required to filter out access to international sites that aren’t rated. One of the criteria bans kids’ access to images of sexual relations between people of the opposite sex. Apparently, the drafters forgot to include images of people of the same sex.

There were also people at the conference proposing that ISPs should be required to block access to certain types of illegal content. If this sounds familiar, think back just a couple of weeks ago to our debate around a pair of U.S. bills that would have done just that for sites with alleged pirated content.

Illegal content would, of course, include child pornography, even though images of children being abused already are illegal in Russia. But it could also include sites that advocate the use of drugs or alcohol, gambling sites and sites that advocate “extremism.” That last category is particularly bothersome to one political activist I spoke with who worries it could be used to block sites that advocate demonstrations against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin or some future regime.

Other countries do ban some extremist content. France and Germany, have laws that prohibit the display of Nazi memorabilia or advocacy of anti-Semitism. Depicting a swastika on an American website may be offensive to most of us, but it’s not illegal.

As I listened to simultaneous translation of the debates, I was reminded of the battles we’ve had in the United States over the past 15 years or so. In 1996, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, which would have made it a crime for anyone to post content that kids could access that was “patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards.”

That was mostly overturned by the Supreme Court, and a somewhat less restrictive follow-up attempt, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, was overturned by a federal circuit court. The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal, which effectively killed that bill as well. We do have a law, the Children’s Internet Protection Act, that requires schools and libraries that receive certain federal funding to use filters and other measures to protect children from inappropriate content. But that doesn’t prevent the posting of the content and only applies to federally subsidized schools and libraries.

One speaker at the conference suggested that sites that promote homosexuality should be blocked, but there is no such provision in the current law and this opinion was not widely shared by others I spoke with. Still, it illustrates how censorship can include value judgments that are not necessarily shared by all members of a society.

A lot has been written about “Facebook addiction.” Indeed some press coverage of a recent study from the University of Chicago suggests that “Facebook and Twitter are more addictive than cigarettes or alcohol.”  But a new study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking puts a positive spin on the issue. Could it be that, just like eating chocolate, Facebook and Twitter are simply fun and pleasurable?

The word “addictive” doesn’t appear once in the report, Why Is Facebook So Successful? Psychophysiological Measures Describe a Core Flow State While Using Facebook,” (PDF) but it does point out that “ the successful spread of SNSs (social networking services)  might be associated with a specific positive affective state experienced by users when they use their SNSs account.”

The researchers analyzed users’ skin conductance, blood volume pulse, electroencephalogram (brain waves), respiratory activity and pupil dilation in 30 healthy subjects “during a 3-minute exposure to a slide show of natural panoramas (relaxation condition),” and “the subject’s personal Facebook account” and found that Facebook use correlated with responses from people who are in a positive emoitonal state.  The technical term, surprisingly, is “flow,” which according to the researchers occurs when “people in free-time activities that did not seem to follow the utility-centered motivational theories of the time” experienced “intense engagement and enjoyment.”

So, is this a bad thing? I suppose some people could interpret anthing positive that people return to often as addictive, but if “intense engagement and emotional enjoyment” is a bad, thing than we have to worry more than just Facebook, Twitter and chocolate. We would also have to include great works of art, beautiful music, great toys, award-winning movies, attractive people and anything else that brings us pleasure.

Disclosure: Larry Magid is co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from Facebook and other Internet companies.

Everyone has a story to tell about safe and respectful use of technology, and those who tell it via video could win a $10,000 prize from Internet security company Trend Micro.

The What’s Your Story? contest, now in its third year, will award one $10,000 grand prize and six other cash category prizes to individuals and schools that submit winning videos.

Videos should be short (30 seconds to 2 minutes) and, as you create your video, you’re encouraged to “keep in mind that these videos will be used to help educate kids and families and promoted by members of the judging panel.” In other words, you’re not just entering a contest, you’re creating a video that could be used by some of the leading non-profit Internet safety organizations and media companies (including Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo) to educate other Internet users all over the world.

Categories for this year’s contest are:

• Take action against bullying
• Keep a good rep online
• Be cell smart

Eligibility

The contest is open to residents of the U.S. and Canada (except Quebec) age 13 or older.  Youth are especially encouraged to submit a video and teachers can enter classroom video projects. The deadline is April 3rd, 2012. Contest rules are more details are here.

Judges this year will include representatives from several non-profit organizations and social media companies including ConnectSafely.org where I serve as co-director.

You can view all of last year’s winners here or just scroll down for last year’s grand prize winner.

Talk by Larry Magid, co-director of ConnectSafely.org at Russia’s Safer Internet Day – Moscow, February 6, 2012

It is a great pleasure to be here.  Even though I grew up during the cold war, I have always been an admirer of the Russian people and the many accomplishments of this great society. Ironically, the Cold War may have been an important reason why the United States is as prominent as it is in technology. Your successful launch of Sputnik in 1957 was the inspiration behind our own space program which led to many technological achievements in both countries.

Internet a Product of the cold war

Even the Internet was a byproduct of the cold war. Created by an agency of the United States military in the late 1960’s, it was designed as a decentralized network so that it would be invulnerable to a Soviet attack.

That decentralization is one of the reasons we enjoy such diversity and freedom. No one country owns the Internet and while Americans no longer have to worry about a Soviet attack, freedom loving people around the world do have to worry about those who seek to censor the Internet.

Regulation and freedom

I’ve only been in Russia a few days, but already I see some similarities between our two peoples.  Even though our histories are very different, we seem to have arrived at a similar place. We are both tech savvy nations that love our freedom and love our gadgets. There are entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts among us both, as well as some who are a bit less exuberant about all the benefits of technology.  And, in both the U.S. and Russia there are those who err on the side of caution and those who like to – as we say in America – push the envelope.  And though we come from very different traditions, both of our nations have a bit of tension between government and industry.

It’s by no means unusual for elected officials to be concerned about young people’s use of technology and to draft legislation to help protect our youth.  But as you consider such legislation, remember that everything has its consequences. Sometimes the best meaning laws can actually do more harm than good. We know that in the United States because we have had a long history of regulation and industry self-regulation including some laws that have been overturned by our Supreme Court because they violated our precious First Amendment that guarantees all Americans freedom of speech.

Internet’s impact

The Internet has an enormous impact on all aspects of life including commerce, journalism and education and no single group has been more adaptive to technology than our youth. They have not just joined the technology revolution – they are leading it.

 Young entrepreneurs

Just last week Facebook announced that it would float shares on the public stock market and is expected to raise between $5 and 10 billion to become possibly a $100 billion company. It was founded 8 years ago by Mark Zuckerberg while he was still a teenager. He is now only 27. Soon there may be as many as  a thousand new millionaires in my community, bidding up the price of housing. Most of them are under 30.

Both Google and Yahoo were started by Stanford University students and even Apple – which is now the world’s most valuable company — was started by a young Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak when they were in their 20s

Innovation comes from freedom

It’s hard to know what sparks technological revolutions, but it’s no coincidence that they came from a country that values freedom of speech. Silicon Valley – where much of this innovation is taking place – is especially strong when it comes to freedom and tolerance.

Evolution of Internet Safety

I spent most of career as a technology journalist but around 1994, I turned my attention to Internet safety by writing the first popular Internet safety educational booklet on behalf of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). There was no research at the time. I guess I can be forgiven for basing my advice on what I thought to be the situation. Now, thanks to a great deal of research, we can base advice on actual risks and a real understanding of how young people use technology and social media. For the past several years I have been a member of the board of directors of NCMEC which works very closely with industry in the United States to assure compliance with the law requiring them to report child sexual abuse issues and other online sexual crimes against children to the National Center which, in turn, sends the worst cases to law enforcement.

ConnectSafely

In 2006 I joined with Anne Collier, who you will hear from later, to form an NGO called ConnectSafely.org.  Our NGO works very closely with the leading youth risk experts in the United States and other countries, including the federally funded Crimes Against Children Research Center and the E.U. Kids Online researchers, who work out of the London School of Economics.

Three have been phases of Internet safety

1. During the 90’s and early 21 century we focused almost exclusively on pornography and predators
2. Later we focused on things kids do to harm themselves and each other
3. In 2009 we developed Online Safety 3.0 – to engage and empower youth and base our programs on actual research – not just guesses.

Education works

We now know that the vast majority of youth are using the Internet safely. The number of problems, relative to the number of users, is quite low. It’s certainly lower than problems associated with life in the physical world. For example we hear a lot of about cyberbullying, but physical bullying in school is actually more common.  We hear about predators, but 80% of all sex crimes against children involve adults and children who know each other in the real world. The perpetrators of these crimes could be teachers, clergy, police officers, doctors, child care workers who anyone else including, sadly the child’s parents or friends of their parents.  Cases where a child is exploited based on an initial contact via the Internet are rare and almost always involve the child taking an extreme risk. Still, one exploited child is one too many which is why we must develop programs that target at-risk youth.

Despite what some people say, research from the best scholars in the U.S. and Europe have found that predators very rarely find victims online. They find them the old fashioned way – in their local communities.

Child rights

It is popular to quote the U.N Convention on the Rights of the Child when we talk about protecting children, but we must not ignore article 13 which says “The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice.”

Child porn is a serious and special problem

It is important not to confuse child pornography or child abuse images with Internet safety. While the distribution of these terrible and illegal images may take place online, the crime always begins offline with an adult who has physical access to a child – often a child they know, and frequently their own children or children of family members.

The creation and distribution of child abuse images is a horrible crime, but it’s very rare for children to actually find these images unless they are being sent these images by someone they know or someone who is grooming them. It is important not to confuse child pornography – which is illegal in most countries including the U.S. and Russia, with adult sexually explicit material which, generally, is not prohibited by law.

Sexual exploitation is at an all-time low

While we talk about protecting children online it is important to know that during the very years that the Internet has grown, from 1992 to 2008, child sexual abuse in United States has decreased by 58%, according the Crimes Against Children Research Center.

Partnership

At this conference we will be discussing partnerships between industry, government and civil society, but there is one very important group that often doesn’t get to go to conferences and that is the hundreds of millions of young people who use the Internet. They MUST have a voice and they must have the freedom to use the Net to express themselves, and move us all forward into what we hope becomes truly the golden century of international cooperation.

There are problems and we are all aware of them: pornography, bullying, adults who would harm children, but we must not let these problems take our attention away from the power and potential of the Internet and we must not exaggerate the problems. As we will show in our workshops, the Internet is a reflection of life and simply amplifies issues that we have been dealing for centuries

Later today, Anne Collier, myself, Daniel Kent and other experts will discuss filtering, laws, digital literacy educational programs and other efforts to help ensure that all of our children are not just safe from bad things but engaged in productive and healthy use of technology.

Thank you very much.

This is one of Larry Magid’s panel presentations at Russia’s Safer Internet Day conference in Moscow on February 6th.  He also gave a plenary talk earlier in the day.

Pseudoscience sculpture by Mihail Chemiakin (Photo by Larry Magid)

There’s an amazing group of sculptures in a park near the Kremlin in Moscow, called “Children are victims of adult vices” by Mihail Chemiakin.

This particular sculpture is “pseudoscience,” which is relevant for the talks that I (along with my ConnectSafely.org co-director Anne Collier) will deliver this week at the Safer Internet Day forum here in Moscow. Some adults have perpetuated myths both about dangers to young people online and the way youth treat each other in social media. Panicking over cyberbullying, sexting, predation and other risks is a form of pseudoscience that hurts young people. That’s not to say that these risks don’t exist, but that kids are far more resilient that many of us give them credit for. To ignore the growing research about youth risk is, indeed, an example of of pseudoscience. Scroll down for links to articles about real science on youth risk.

The other vices depicted in sculpture are drug addiction, prostitution, theft, alcoholism, ignorance, indifference, violence, sadism, lack of memory, exploitation of child labor, poverty and war.  For more, see this on Wikipedia.

Mihail Chemiakin's "Children are victims of adult vices" taken by Lvova Anastasiya & downloaded from Wikipedia Commons

For more

Internet fact sheet from the Crimes against Children Research Center

Predator panic making a comeback

Let’s not create a cyberbullying panic

With new data we can stop the teen sexting panic

Why technopanics are bad (Anne Collier)

Why do we always sell the next generation short (Adam Thierer)