Page 16 - SAMENA Trends - November-December 2019

CHILD ONLINE SAFETY SAMENA TRENDS

it for prevention of abuse and protection
of children online, and to detect and
apprehend the perpetrators are urgently
needed. Artificial Intelligence is by many
seen as a potential solution. However,
experts in Artificial Intelligence are not
always aware of the risks for children
online, and law enforcement and child
protection agencies seldom have the
right technical expertise to understand
the potential of Artificial Intelligence. The
meeting helped to bridge those gaps by
bringing together the experts in AI with
Photo credit: World Childhood Foundation USA exploitation.
the experts in child sexual abuse and

“AI is already widely used to prevent
and investigate child abuse online, but
perpetrators are constantly finding new
ways to misuse technology for their own
purposes. Therefore, new, innovative

and more collaboratively in order to fight
of abuse such as Online grooming for accelerating collective actions and approaches are necessary to work faster
this crime. We must take advantage of
sexual purposes, Sexting/ self-produced ensuring that people at the forefront of the fantastic potential of AI to protect and
sexualized youth content, Sexual extortion technological developments understand strengthen children. Our roundtable is a
and Live-streaming of child sexual abuse the risks and opportunities that technology step in that direction,” said Paula Guillet
shows. can bring to children. With this in mind, de Monthoux, Secretary General of world
the King and Queen of Sweden invited a Childhood Foundation.
Finding effective innovative solutions select group of global thought-leaders
addressing the problem requires and experts from the private sector, Some of the potential areas where Artificial
intensifying cross-sectorial dialogue, academia, law enforcement agencies, Intelligence could revolutionize the fight
regulatory bodies and child protection against child sexual abuse online are:
Experts in Artificial organisations to a global roundtable at the • Software that can find, and stop
Royal Palace in Stockholm. The objective
grooming of children, in real-time
Intelligence are not of the meeting was to harness the power • A program that can analyze and
always aware of the risks of artificial intelligence (AI) to safeguard categorize millions of photos, including
for children online, and children online. The event took place on child sexual abuse material, within
minutes.
November 20 and was organized by the
law enforcement and World Childhood Foundation and Global • A tool that can take what seems to
child protection agencies Child Forum, both organizations founded be incomprehensible background
by members of the Royal Family.
noise and extract conversations and
seldom have the right transcribe them into text in order to
technical expertise to Artificial Intelligence as part of the solution identify and rescue the children in the
understand the potential of While focusing on more effective ways of video.
detection and elimination of child sexual
Artificial Intelligence. The abuse material from the Internet there All of the above is theoretically possible
meeting helped to bridge is the need to also invest in solutions for with the help of artificial intelligence, but
much work remains before AI can be used
prevention of upload and spread of child
those gaps by bringing sexual abuse material in the first place, to its full potential.
together the experts in of making devices and social media and
AI with the experts in gaming platforms used by hundreds of Several concrete tools using AI to protect
millions of children the first line of defense
children online were presented – some of
child sexual abuse and by preventing unlawful grooming. Since them already in use, some in the making.
exploitation... technology easily can be misused to harm Examples of tools presented were the
and exploit children, new ways to deploy
following;

16 NOVEMBER 2019