EuCONSENT to reveal ground-breaking research and outline plans for EU-wide infrastructure to enable online age verification and parental consent at Athens Conference next week.
A trailblazing EU-funded pilot project which is developing European-wide infrastructure to facilitate interoperable, anonymised Age Verification and Parental Consent mechanisms is to host the first ever conference to focus exclusively on finding the balance between Online Child’s Rights, Age Verification and Parental Consent.
The project, known as euCONSENT, is inviting people with an interest in online safety, privacy and child protection to hear the findings of a major suite of academic and primary research in the field, prepared for the European Commission by the LSE, Aston and Leiden Universities and Revealing Reality at its conference in Athens next Thursday afternoon, although there is also the option to participate online – sign up for free at www.euCONSENT.eu/conference.
The keynote speech will be given by June Lowery-Kingston, Head of Unit, “Accessibility, Multilingualism & Safer Internet” at the European Commission which is funding this pilot project, initiated after representations from the European Parliament.
Speakers also include Anna Morgan, Deputy Commissioner at the Irish Data Protection Commission and Lubos Kuklis the Chief Executive of the Council for Broadcasting and Retransmission of Slovakia and current chair of / European Platform of Regulatory Authorities (EPRA) who will provide their perspective on the project. These two regulators provide a link to the EDPB and ERGA as well – two other cross-European networks for data protection and audio-visual regulators.
There will be contributions from representatives of children’s charities and platforms such as Facebook, an example of a global company committed to complying with EU law in these fields but looking at all the options open to facilitate that ambition, such as this innovative project.
The euCONSENT team will also present their early ideas on how to approach the technical challenge of delivering a pan-European solution for Age Verification and Parental Consent, ahead of a wider public consultation on their proposals.
In a bold step towards enabling stronger regulatory online protection for European children, a consortium of twelve of the continent’s leading academic institutions, NGOs and technology providers were awarded EU funding to design, deliver and pilot a new Europe-wide system. This solution will allow service providers to verify the age of their users to protect them from harmful content, and will ensure that younger children have parental consent before they share personal data.
John Carr, OBE, chair of the conference and the project’s Advisory Board said:
“This Conference is one of many ways in which the euCONSENT project is engaging with stakeholders as it seeks to deliver online child protection across the EU, while championing the rights of children and adults to access the opportunities the internet offers. Designing a system of child protection for the digital environment that is truly rights-respecting is an important task, and one that many families are calling for. The challenge will be to serve children’s best interests by balancing their rights to protection and safety with their rights to participation, inclusion and privacy, among other rights. It’s great that this project has been consulting European children from the outset, and be guided by their views also in formulating the project results.”
