Not an Impasse: Child Safety, Privacy, and Healing Together
Kate Sim
39th Chaos Communication Congress (39C3): Power Cycles · Day 1 · Saal Ground
In "Not an Impasse: Child Safety, Privacy, and Healing Together," Kate Sim, Director of the Children's Online Safety and Privacy Research (COSPER) program, challenges the pervasive framing of online child safety as a zero-sum game against adult privacy. Sim argues that this binary, which she terms an "impass," paralyzes effective engagement with the complex social, moral, political, and technological dimensions of the issue. The talk dissects how current regulatory and industry approaches, often driven by fear and a "child protectionist" mindset, conflate harm with content, prioritize punitive measures, and ultimately fail to protect children effectively while eroding privacy for all.