Making safety measures for the internet

The creation of a task force dedicated to the creation of a safe and secure internet for young people is currently being debated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. I am a chirman.

9 years have passed since the formation of the industry-academic-government platform “Japan Internet Safety Promotion Association” as a measure for protecting young people on the internet.
During this period of outcry, Prime Minister Fukuda stated that, “Cellphones do a lot of harm and no good for young people.” Our group responded with a counter movement, stating that, “Cell phones do a lot of good and only some harm.”

This was followed by a brief period of calm, only for the internet environment of young people to face a sudden and complete change. Cellphones were replaced with smartphones, content was replaced with social media, and the website were replaced with apps. Soon after, new problems emerged.

Meanwhile, the government changed its stance from anti-technology to pro-technology by laying down plans to enable children to study on tablets by 2020. Our group was part of the movement that pushed for this. Yet, this came with its own set of problems.

There was a briefing from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications at the beginning of the task force debate.

- 94% of high school students and 46% of middle school students own smartphones.

- There is an upward trend of crime resulting from community sites.

- Parental controls are used on 65% of cellphones and 45% of smartphones.

- Many parents believe that they can control their child’s activity on the internet even without the use of parental controls.

The task force’s agenda is:

1) Literacy education

2) Parental control countermeasures

3) Framework implementation

The plan was to perform a total inspection of past internet safety measures and use the results to plan out specific actions.

Committee members offered many views regarding these issues.

1) Some of the views brought up concerning literacy include that education is the most important countermeasure against literacy, that the problem lies with parents and not the children, and that problems will be faced when responding to those with low awareness. There were also strong opinions inquiring about responsiveness in the classroom.

2) For parental controls, many brought up the complexity of setting up the filters and called for reform to make them easier to understand. Sales agents reported that, “It takes an entire 15 minutes just to explain how parental controls work to a customer, making for a total of 2 hours.” It makes perfect sense that some customers would rather not set them up than sit through the explanation.

However, the reform of smartphone parental controls would require the cooperation of OS businesses (e.g., Apple, Google).  It is unlikely that they would respond to the requests of a single country. This is the current problem that we face.

3) Provided that countermeasures for literacy and parental controls are rolled out, we are left with the difficult question of what framework the organization will move forward with. There is actually a very high number of stakeholders involved in the protection of young people on the internet.

Third-party organizations such as the Japan Internet Safety Promotion Association. Providers such as communication carriers, manufacturers, sales agents, social media, and OS businesses. Users such as parents and schools. The government, the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry, the Consumer Affairs Agency, and the National Police Agency. Finally, all of the municipalities. They are all stakeholders.

The countermeasure can be considered both intangible/tangible and while this is a global issue, it is a cost sector that will not produce profit on its own. Though related to business, its public interest is high. Now, how do we redesign it? Please lend us your knowledge and expertise. Thank you.