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Witness Testimony
Ms. Teri Schroeder
The 'Dot Kids' Internet Domain: Protecting Children Online
Thank you, Chairman Upton and Ranking Member Markey, for inviting me to testify before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet at the hearing entitled "The 'Dot Kids" Internet Domain; Protecting Children Online. Predatory acts against our children are among the most heinous of crimes perpetrated within our society. Historically, communities as a collective take deliberate and specific actions to protect their children in an effort to prevent these heinous acts. These protective actions include: education - teaching children to be wary of strangers, to recognize and avoid dangerous situations, to cry for help when they feel threatened. Our nation is now faced with technological advancements that allow even the youngest of children to have access to the Internet. Students today explore the wonders of the world by transporting themselves through cyberspace. They can travel to the brightest, most intellectual domains of the universe and conversely, they may travel to the darkest, most detestable realms of the human imagination; and, they travel this world alone. A universal paradigm shift has occurred in the methods and means available to child predators in pursuit of their prey; and as such a universal paradigm shift has occurred on the preventative tactics that we employ in our efforts to protect our nations youth against these predators. The content of my testimony today will address the ramifications of this universal shift as our nations youth explore the wonders of the Internet. We truly are a global economy and as such our nations youth are cyber citizens engaging in online activities. Those activities include socialization (two way communication whether that be through email, chat or instant messaging), games, shopping, entertainment and education. I will be addressing the role of education and youth empowerment and the need to empower our nations youth with the appropriate tools to minimize the number of predatory acts predicated against them. It is imperative that a proactive well-balanced approach be deployed to support the challenge of embracing the activities of our nations youth online. i-SAFE America is dedicated to: 1) implementing a standardized Internet safety education program throughout the nation that provides kids and teens with essential tools to reduce the risk of their being victimized while engaged in activities via the Internet; and 2) launching an Outreach Campaign that empowers students to take control of their online experiences and make educated, informed, and knowledgeable decisions as they actively engage in cyber activities. The i-SAFE Internet safety curriculum is a teaching and learning experience, which incorporates best practices as they are defined by the latest educational research, and correlates them to accepted educational standards. This is accomplished by providing a broad range of materials and formats which meet a variety of teaching and learning needs for students and educators in grades Kindergarten through 12. Topics are centered on up-to-date information pertinent to safety issues, which confront today's youth through continuing advances in Internet technology. The curriculum creates a successful learning environment through a model of integrated critical thinking activities and guided opportunities for youth empowerment. Active participation in i-SAFE student activities promotes acquisition of knowledge, analysis of online behaviors, construction of solutions to Internet safety problems and issues, and involvement in the spread of Internet safety concepts to others. Through this process, students enhance and enrich their own lives, the lives of other students, and the community at large, as they engage in creating a safer cyber community. Our children now live in two diverse worlds: their physical world and the world of cyberspace. As such, they essentially live in two cultures that often conflict. To date, many of the lessons learned in the physical world don't seem relevant in cyberspace as these children reach out to strangers as friends. This paradigm shift demands new innovative educational programs, and tools, for our children; their parents and the community. It is essential that children, as they travel their world of cyberspace alone, be provided with the knowledge and tools they need to independently recognize and avoid dangerous situations online; to actively engage learned proactive techniques to more safely interact with strangers online; to critically appraise situations in which they find themselves; and to react appropriately when they find themselves in uncomfortable, compromising, or threatening situations. Students today will be global citizens for the rest of their lives. Students view the Internet in a much different way than adults. I would now like to address the "Parents Internet Assumptions" and the "Youth Perceptions/Behavior regarding the Internet." There were more than 1400 parents who responded to the i-SAFE parent survey. The data compiled, from students, involved a participation of more than 10,000 students, in grades 5-12 from 30 states. As noted, the "Youths Perceptions/Behavior," regarding the Internet, varied greatly from that of their parents. An overwhelming 88 percent of the parents, who participated in the survey, felt they knew "some or a lot about where their children go or what their children do on the Internet." Ninety-two percent stated they have established rules for their child's Internet activity. But this perception is contradicted by the students themselves as 33 percent of the students do not share what they do or where they go on the Internet with their parents and 40 percent do not discuss Internet Safety with their parents. What is most important is that 34 percent said their parents had not established any rules for their Internet Activity. PARENT'S INTERNET ASSUMPTIONS *1400 parents responded to our Parent
survey. - 88% of parents feel they know "some" or "a lot" about - 92% stated they have established rules for their child's YOUTH
PERCEPTIONS / BEHAVIORS REGARDING THE INTERNET - 33% do not share what they do or where they go on the Internet with their
parents. - 40% do not discuss Internet safety with their parents. - 23%
stated their parents complain about the amount of time they spend on the
Internet. - 14%
stated their parents have no idea how much time they spend on the
Internet. - 34%
said their parents had not established any rules for their Internet activity. In real life Kids/Teens spend twice as much time with peers as with parents or other adults. However, through the guise of anonymity the Internet provides a medium, which allows a student to believe that the communication they are having online is a respective peer when in many instances it is an adult. Even though students may be aware of the dangers inherent in communicating with someone online, we continue to see they make decisions about engaging in a behavior as if it were a one-time thing. Risk taking is a natural part of kids/teens lives. They take risks in order to grow, trying new activities, generating new ideas, experimenting with new roles. However, they can also find themselves in trouble with their risk taking. Concern over such risk behaviors has led to the creation of many types of intervention. Some of these interventions have attempted to manipulate kids/teens beliefs, values and behaviors hoping to get them to act more cautiously. Other interventions have attempted to improve their stability to make sensible decisions, hoping to get them to make wise choices on their own. Having general decision-making skills enable kids/teens to protect themselves in many situations. In August 2002, the proposal for the guidelines and requirements for the kids.us domain contained the following statistics: · More than 140 million Americans, half of our nation, are now online. ·
90% of the children in · 65% of 10-13 year olds use the Internet I would like to give you some additional statistics relative to the activities of kids/teens online. This data was compiled as part of the i-SAFE program. i-SAFE conducts pre and post assessments with students participating in the i-SAFE Program. The data presented at this hearing was obtained as part of the "pre assessments" which were obtained before the students had participated in them i-SAFE Program in school. This data was gathered from a pool of 2500 students from around the nation:
After participation in the i-SAFE program, a post assessment
was administered and the following statistics were gathered from a pool of 2500
students from around the nation:
There are more than 13 million kids who use Instant Messaging which is nearly three out of four online teens (research by Pew reported in the JAMA, 2001). It was reported in 2000 that 1 in 4 kids participated in Real Time Chat. (FamilyPC Survey, 2000). This number has continued to increase. AOL released a study last year that indicated that the use of the chat and instant messaging, by kids/teens, has far surpassed the use of the telephone. Current i-SAFE
data shows an increase in chatroom use: 41% of 8th graders surveyed
have gone into chatrooms (i-SAFE America 2004). In a survey conducted by Symantec Corp in June 2003, 76 percent of kids surveyed (ages 7 - 18) have one or more e-mail accounts. According to i-SAFE data, 2/3 of teachers surveyed in grades K-2 report that at least 25% of their students have used e-mail. It is widely recognized and accepted that the main activity of kids/teens, as cyber citizens, is online two-way communication. That communication consists of chat, email and instant messaging. The nucleus of the Internet affords the opportunity of two-way communications and inherently the computer does not know whether the users communicating are that of a child or an adult. This means of communication allows users, regardless of age, gender or socioeconomic status to openly and freely exchange ideas and information. Our nation's youth has now coined a new term for " hanging out with my friends" and actively searching for new friends is done through a click of a mouse. I am showing you a chart, which contains statistical data that was obtained from i-SAFE pre and post assessments. From the data compiled the number of students that communicate in a chat room steadily increases from grades 3 to 8 where it peaks. As a student enters their high school years their need to communicate on-line decreases and is replaced by more social activity in the "real world" such as dating, sports and other extra-curricular activities. They become much more mobile (drivers license) and would rather "hang" with friends than "chat" on the Internet. 
In July 2000, The Journal of the American
Medical Association, in cooperation with a survey that was conducted by the
University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center,
published a "Call to Action Report" in which it reported that , older teens,
troubled youth, frequent Internet users, chat room participants and those who
communicate with strangers online are at the greatest risk. These demographics
cover the majority of kids/teens traveling on the Let me begin by addressing specific examples of how dramatically the protective actions that have been employed historically have been impacted by this technologically-enabled, Internet-driven, paradigm shift. Education: Parents teach children to be wary of strangers on the street, in public places, and at the front door; but now, the strangers that these children meet - are not on the street - they are in cyberspace. And, to the detriment of the parents, many of their children are more "Net" savvy than either parent. This inequality of knowledge hinders parents in their abilities to address cyber safety issues and to properly instruct their children about the dangers of meeting strangers online. Historically, when parents taught their children to recognize and avoid dangerous situations, those situations were based on tangible, physical elements within their community. Now, danger lies in an amorphous cyber-world cloaked in the allusion of anonymity. Parental Supervision: Many of our children's activities have dramatically shifted from participatory activities (easily supervised by a parent and often enjoyable to watch) to solitary activities - engaged through the computer keyboard or joystick - that do not lend themselves to easy supervision nor enjoyment by a non-participant (such as a parent). Children may spend hours playing solitary games online, or they may play in tandem with their cyber friends, or they may even play with total strangers they connect with online in an Internet gaming community. The Internet has broadened a child's ability to meet other people and acquire "friends." Historically, children made friends at school, through family acquaintances, and from participating in community organizations. A child is no longer confined to the local community from which to socialize and gain friends; literally, cyberspace eliminates all geographical barriers and frees a child to roam the world in search of that one, special "friend." Predators are also free to roam. The degree of difficulty for parents to monitor, or to simply meet, their child's friends has increased tremendously. Preventative Tactics: A commonly employed tactic for protecting our children is to provide an adult chaperone as our children explore outside of their community. Now, children explore the wonders of the world by transporting themselves through cyberspace and they travel this world alone, without the care and protection of a chaperone. Physical Barriers. Historically, parents routinely lock their doors at home each night to keep intruders out; schools monitor persons who enter the campus. There are innumerable, vulnerable children who are isolated, and lonely, and bored who constantly search the Internet for other children with whom they can make friends and chat. As these children search the web for friends so too the predator searches the web for prey. The predator will find the child, the child will find a "friend," and the outcome will be devastating. The effectiveness of currently employed physical barriers has been severely compromised. Predators lure and seduce their victims from within the privacy of the victim's own home and operate in a world that is no longer constrained by physical limitations or geographical barriers; they stalk their prey through cyberspace and the ramifications of this universal, paradigm shift are staggering. When taken as a whole they can be overwhelming, perhaps paralyzing; but - if ignored - the ramifications will be devastating to our youth. To approach any entity of this magnitude and to effect change it is advisable to search for a common element, theme; or component against which a focused solution may be enjoined. Up to this point in my testimony, I have provided insight into the incredible, paradigm shift that has occurred in our society and how this new paradigm directly affects the safety of our children. To illustrate the critical points, I mapped the ramifications of this paradigm shift to a common element in cyberspace: two-way communication (ie. chat room, instant messaging and email) The remainder of my testimony will focus on potential solutions that we as a society may embrace as our children extend into the farthest reach of cyberspace; as they interact virtually with persons throughout the world and as they evolve as "Net" citizens. As Judith F. Krug, Director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, stated in her testimony before the COPPA Commission on August 3, 2000: "The children of today will be Net citizens for the rest of their lives. They need to be taught the skills to cope in the virtual world just as they are taught skills to cope in the physical world. Children should be educated in appropriate increments and appropriate settings on how to avoid inappropriate Internet content, to report illegal or unsafe behavior and to engage in safe interaction online. Children who are not taught these skills are not only in danger as children in a virtual world, they also will grow into young adults, college students and an American workforce who are not capable of avoiding online fraud, Internet addictions and online stalking." It is imperative that any domain that engages in the attraction of kids/teens recognize how children actually use the Internet. It is equally important to promote the online social activities within the domain to support the academic strategies that teach children to make safe and wise choices about using the Internet and to take control of their online experiences: where they go, what they see, to whom they talk, and what they do. Children need to be given the tools to assist them in the acquisition of skills that will allow them to evaluate independently the information they are acquiring and exchanging online. By improving children's "information and media literacy," they will become safe and responsible cyber citizens thus vitiating the "digital divide" that exists today between Youths Perception/Behavior regarding the Internet and those of their Parents. Currently, both businesses and governmental agencies have begun to embrace digital certificate technology as an electronic means for identifying participants in transactions that occur online. They leverage this technology as a method for verifying and authenticating a person's electronic identity. The simplest way to view a digital certificate is as an electronic ID card. However, digital certificate technology is far from simple; but, given that the intent of this testimony is to identify and express how technology can be used, rather than to define the intricacies of the technology, I will refer to digital certificate technology in the simplest terms possible for the reader to understand. A certification authority issues digital certificates. A certification authority can issue various levels of digital certificates that are dependent upon the amount of authentication that is required to ensure that the person who is applying for the digital certificate is in fact the person that he or she claims to be. In other words, to obtain a digital certificate a person must present proof of identity and the "level" of the certificate obtained depends upon the amount of proof required. Example: Level 1 certificate - any photo ID required Level 2 certificate - government issued photo ID required Level 3 certificate - government issued photo ID required plus passport or birth certificate Level 4 certificate - all requirements of Level 3 plus a background check Level 5 certificate - DNA How could digital certificate technology increase the safety of children who frequent a particular chat room or deploy two-way communications on the World Wide Web? A public- or private-sector chat room provider could engage digital certificate technology as a means for permitting or denying access to any given chat room or online area that allows two way communication. Conceivably, a chat room provider could institute a policy that only children under the age of 13 are allowed to participate in a particular chat room. The intent of this policy is to provide a safer online environment by making their "best effort" at excluding adults and potential pedophiles from the chat room. To enforce the "under the age of 13" policy, the chat provider would require all participants to login using a Level 3 digital certificate. Through the use of the digital certificate and the chat provider's policy of restricting access, the children participating in this chat room have a lessened degree of risk than those children that participate in unrestricted chat rooms. This technology exists and i-SAFE, through the empowerment of partnership with Verisign, is now launching the first tool for our nation's youth, using digital certification. The unprecedented Digital Credential program works to reduce the vulnerability of America's students in all grades, K-12, with a unique digital credential that helps protect students as they engage in two way communications online. The Digital Credential is in the form of s small USB Token, which can be carried on a key chain and used at school, home; or on any computer with a USB port. The Digital Credential allows the kids and teens to enter an age centered chat room, or conduct two way communication, with confidence that everyone logged in will be who they say they are - chatters actual ages and genders can be confirmed from the digital credential token. The digital credential helps to safeguard the integrity of the child's online experience. The digital credential is distributed through the i-SAFE Safe School Program at the time of enrollment (with parental consent) helping confirm to parents that this program is offered through a trustworthy source. The schools database, which remains with the school, provides all the necessary information contained on the digital credential and validation is provided to assure that the token is valid at the time of usage. Neither i-SAFE or Verisign has access to this information. The identity of the student is never disclosed, just the students age and gender. The program allows for easy revocation of the credential when the student transfers, graduates or is not longer enrolled in the schools. I am showing you screen shots of how this new tool will be deployed and the interaction between the user and technology. 
We currently use digital certificates to execute online financial transactions. Businesses use this technology to protect their monetary assets. In September there will be a deployment of a pilot project, which will be launched within the i-SAFE program, that will allow parents to opt in to have their son/daughter be issued their first digital certificated which is being deployed nationwide as the i-Stik. 
Protecting our children is at the very heart of this hearing. Thank you, Chairman Upton and Ranking Member Markey, for inviting me to testify before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. In my testimony, today, I addressed the paradigm shift that has occurred within our society due the advancements in web technologies and the advent of two way communications that could be deployed within the kids.us domain to facilitate the establishment of an enjoyable environment for our nations youth. I have touched upon one technological approach that i-SAFE is launching to empower our nations youth with a "tool" to help protect our children from falling victim to online predators. In conclusion, there is no single solution
for protecting our children. However, the value of empowering our children -
through education - with the knowledge and critical-thinking skills that they
need to be able to independently assess the every-day situations they will
encounter, while online, cannot be overstressed. Children must be able to
effectively protect themselves from cyber predators, to recognize potentially
harmful or inappropriate actions, to actively disengage from negative behaviors
or compromising situations, and to seek help when threatened. These lessons are
learned. Education and empowerment are key.
NTIA
and Economics and Statistics Administration. A Nation Online: "How Americans Are Expanding Their Use of the Internet"
published by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration,
U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics, and Statistics Administration (02/02) www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/dn/html/anationonline2.htm Survey conducted by Grunwald
Associates, Pew
Internet and American Life Project - 2002 study of kids ages 12 to 17 Symantec Corp. Survey June,
2003 reported August 26 at http://www.almenconi.com/news/aug03/082603.html i-SAFE Related Documents |
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