Protecting citizens and empowering industry through Safety by Design: an Asia-Pacific approach

Part 1 - Lead Organizer

Contact Person

Ella Serry

Organization / Affiliation (Please state "Individual" if appropriate)

eSafety Commissioner

Designation

A/g Manager

Gender

Female

Economy of Residence

Australia

Primary Stakeholder Group

Government

Part 2 - Session Proposal

Your proposal is for

Main Conference (Day 1-3)

Session Title

Protecting citizens and empowering industry through Safety by Design: an Asia-Pacific approach

Track

Inclusion Trust

Session Format

Showcase

Where do you plan to organize your session?

Virtual / online

Specific Issues for Discussion

Together Australia, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam are home to a fifth of the world’s internet users, accounting for nearly 1 billion people online. The adoption of online platforms and services is rapid, and there are serious implications for user safety. This session will showcase the Australian eSafety Commissioner’s Safety by Design initiative as a world-leading approach to enhance online safety - developed with industry. Safety by Design seeks to minimise the threat surface in the online world by placing user safety and rights at the centre of the design process and encouraging technology companies to anticipate, detect and eliminate online harms. The session will discuss the principles of Safety by Design, the ways platforms can be weaponised to cause harm, examples of current good practice and the tools needed to help design and deploy safer platforms, ultimately stimulating innovation and growth. Importantly, this session will highlight how Governments and industry across the digital ecosystem can harness Safety by Design, and will encourage stakeholders in the Asia Pacific region to consider what user safety means for their communities, and how they can capitalise on the momentum of this initiative.

Describe the Relevance of Your Session to APrIGF

Safety by Design is a multistakeholder initiative, delivering a set of universal principles for online services and platforms that cut across the full spectrum of online harms. The session will focus on many of the themes for APrIGF2021, including digital human rights, empowerment, cyber bullying, harassment, content moderation and cyber norms. The Safety by Design Principles – developed in 2018 – are the result of collaborative consultation with industry, NGOs, advocates, parents and young people. The three Safety by Design principles are: Service Provider Responsibility; User Empowerment and Autonomy; and Transparency and Accountability. The Trust track is fundamental to each of Safety by Design principle. Firstly, service providers have an onus to ensure users can benefit from a healthy digital environment without compromising user safety. Instilling user empowerment and autonomy ensures all people can access the internet equally, and that diverse communities have an equal right to participate in the online world. Finally, implementing transparency and accountability within an online community deepens the trust between a platform and users, and between its users. Safety by Design provides important cross-sector perspectives from a variety of stakeholders, emphasising the importance of fostering harmonisation of approaches globally, while reflecting regional views and experiences.

Methodology / Agenda

- The session will include a keynote address by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, which will outline the global leadership role of the eSafety office in leading, coordinating and advising on a range of safety issues. - This will be followed by an overview of the Safety by Design initiative, including development of the three overarching principles and assessment tools for industry. - The showcase will provide an interactive demonstration of the tools for industry, interspersed with video interventions from key industry stakeholders in the APAC region involved in developing the tools. - Audience engagement will be through Q&A chat, with live Q&A with presenters at the end of the session. - The audience will be encouraged to view and interact with the tools and resources following the session.

Please provide 3 subject matter tags that best describe your session.

#safety #industry #CapacityBuilding

Moderators & Speakers Info (Please complete where possible)

Please explain the rationale for choosing each of the above contributors to the session.

Julie Inman Grant is Australia’s eSafety Commissioner. In this role, Julie leads the world’s first government regulatory agency committed to keeping its citizens safer online. Julie sees the fallout of serious online harms every day. These harms are well-known and preventable when safety protections are embedded upfront. She believes this is a crisis of tech leadership that requires a shift in design ethos from “moving fast and breaking things” to a mindset that encourages responsibility, transparency and greater user empowerment. Julie has extensive experience in the non-profit and government sectors, and spent two decades working in senior public policy and safety roles in the tech industry at Microsoft, Twitter and Adobe. As Commissioner, Julie plays an important global role as Chair of the Child Dignity Alliance’s Technical Working Group and as a Board Member of the WePROTECT Global Alliance. In 2019 she was designated one of Australia’s most influential women by the Australian Financial Review and a leading Australian in Foreign Affairs by the Sydney Morning Herald. In 2020, the World Economic Forum and Apolitical designated the Commissioner as one of the #Agile50, the world’s most influential leaders revolutionising government. Other speakers and moderators will be key project staff from eSafety involved in the development of the principles and tools. Videos will be from key industry players with a presence in the Asia Pacific region.