Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) Releases Online Safety Proposals

The Family Online Safety Institute ("FOSI") released its report Making Wise Choices Online in which it provides a survey of ongoing initiatives to ensure the safety of children using the Internet as well as four policy proposals for the coming Administration to consider. The release coincides with the Second Annual FOSI Conference, held today in Washington, D.C., themed "Safe At Any Speed: Rules, Tools & Public Policies to Keep Kids Safe Online."

Womble Carlyle is pleased to have sponsored the FOSI Conference and to have forged a friendship with this organization. The open forum that FOSI provides, the cornerstone of which are the several "Roundtables" it convenes worldwide, for discussing how best to ensure child online safety is likely to play a crucial role in shaping Internet policy and technology for the United States and the entire world community.

The FOSI Report focuses on the need for a "multifaceted" approach to online safety, with an emphasis on educating parents, children, and schools to identify the danger, understand the technology, and make good choices about how to use the Internet as a valuable tool for learning and commerce. With those goals in mind, FOSI advances four proposals for the new Administration of President-Elect Obama to consider:

1. Hold an annual White House Online Safety Summit to be attended by relevant agency directors, NGOs, and leaders in both industry and the non-profit sector.
2. Create a United States Council for Internet Safety ("USCIS") whose members would be agency directors, industry leaders and representatives from NGOs.
3. Fund a $100 Million Online Safety Program to fund online safety awareness and education projects.
4. Appoint a National Safety Officer within the already-proposed office of the Chief Technical Officer.

These proposals complement the legislative measures already taken this year, such as the Broadband Data Improvement Act (Pub. L. 110-385), signed October 10, 2008, that includes a provision requiring the Federal Trade Commission to establish a nationwide program for educating the public about Internet safety. More targeted legislation subsequently was enacted in the KIDS Act of 2008 (Pub. L. No. 110-400) and the PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008 (Pub. L. No. 110-401) that were signed October 13, 2008. The KIDS Act establishes a secure, nationwide database linked to the national Sex Offender Registry that "social networking websites" can access in order to verify that its subscribers are not known offenders. The PROTECT Our Children Act provides multi-agency support and a fund of $60 Million annually for a national Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and to provide grants to state and local prosecutors, investigators, and educators to develop standards and procedures addressing Internet crimes against children.

The proposals in the FOSI Report complement these legislative measures in offering a unifying forum to help identify the risks and dangers that children particularly face when they go online. Through the proposed White House Summit and USCIS, the leaders in government, public policy, and the industry can come together to chart the progress of implementing both legislative mandates and industry initiatives aimed at preserving child safety. In addition, FOSI's funding proposal adds a preventative feature to Internet safety by helping children and parents adopt guidelines for safe Internet usage where it begins -- in the home. These proposals are aimed to offer a holistic approach to online safety that may decrease the nation's reliance on law enforcement and investigatory solutions to Internet crimes against children.