The Governments of the UK and USA have signed a Joint Statement on Child Online Safety, committing to work together to “ensure all users have the skills and resources they need to make safe and informed choices online, and advance stronger protections for children”. The two countries will also establish a joint children’s online safety working group to work towards the ambitions set out in the Joint Statement.

The Joint Statement draws attention to the increasing use of smartphones and social media platforms among young people in both countries, and the steps that each have taken to make the internet safer for children. It recognises the benefits of technology for children, but notes that “online platforms, including social media companies, have a moral responsibility to respect human rights and put in place additional protections for children’s safety and privacy”. These include measures such as “age-appropriate safeguards, including protections from content and interactions that harm children’s health and safety” as well as “measures to address and prevent sexual exploitation and abuse, harassment, cyberbullying, content that is abusive (including technology-facilitated gender-based violence), and content that encourages or promotes suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders”.

In addition to setting out steps that both countries have taken in this area so far, the Joint Statement sets out what still needs to be done including, for example, increased transparency from online platforms, clear and accessible terms of service, and better reporting of online safety practices so as to assist governments, regulators, and the public to better understand the technology. It also calls for further research into the impact of “excessive social media and smartphone use on children’s development” and suggests that there should be work conducted to allow “privacy preserving access to online platform data for independent researchers”.

The Joint Statement continues by stating that both countries “acknowledge that risk-based and safety-, privacy-, and inclusivity-by-design approaches throughout design, development, and deployment are fundamental to children’s safety and wellbeing online, alongside increased transparency and accountability from online platforms”. It explains that measures such as preventing the promotion of harmful content, better reporting on content moderation, strong default privacy settings, and limits on targeted advertising play an important role in protecting children online, and stresses that such measures should be “implemented in a manner that respects human rights, including privacy and freedom of expression”.

It concludes by stating that children’s online safety is “an issue of global importance” and that both countries “encourage online platforms to go further and faster in their efforts to protect children by taking immediate action and continually using the resources available to them to develop innovative solutions, while ensuring there are appropriate safeguards for user privacy and freedom of expression”.

Commenting on the Joint Statement, the Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, said, “the online world brings incredible benefits for young people, enriching their education and social lives. But these experiences must take place in an environment which has safety baked in from the outset, not as an afterthought. Delivering this goal is my priority. The digital world has no borders and working with our international partners like the US – one of our closest allies and home to the biggest tech firms – is essential. This joint statement will turn our historic partnership towards delivering a safer online world for our next generation”.

To read the Joint Statement in full, click here.