ETSI's Work on Safeguards for Young Children

1. European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI)HFT2006ETSI's work on safeguards for young childrenSpecialist Task Forces 201 and 266 HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

2. Content of Presentation • Background • ETSI work • STF201 • STF266 • Future Work • STFQC • Conclusions HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

3. It starts with the children......... • Children have the right to grow to their potential and to be given the opportunity to become fully develop as well balanced citizens. • Children are not little adults. • They are ‘future’ adults. • As children, they think, act, and appreciate the world around them very differently from adults. • They are naive, trusting, vulnerable • (so are some adults!) • Etsi's work deals with children between 4 and 12 years of age • the most vulnerable group HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

4. Many new products for children are under development HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

5. Why is it important to do this work? • Users • children under 12 are a ‘protected market’ • they cannot legally engage in electronic transactions • customer services organisations designed for mature adults • Parents, guardians • Not necessarily ICT aware, or fully knowledgeable about consequences, and rely on agencies for information, guidance • Industry • See this as an increasingly important market sector • need guidelines • design, deployment and provisioning • Political • Governments, and child agencies are becoming concerned • EC policy (Commissioner Reding) • UK Home Office guidelines on search, moderation, LBS • reports from Which?, Childnet, Save the Children etc HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

6. Consequences if not carefully done • Political • there is a risk of over regulation • national administrations, or EC, forced to act • Industry • additional difficulties, higher costs • Will lose out on a major market opportunity • Users (children), and their Guardians • Widespread mis-trust, mis-use and abuse HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

7. ETSI’s role • a recognition that this is a ‘hot topic’ for the industry in general • especially for service providers • mobile and fixed • Leading consensus on how to address the potential of this market • preparation and dissemination of guidelines • engagement with the industry, stakeholders • workshops and seminars • Conferences • eg “Mobile Service Strategies in the Youth Market” • press releases HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

8. ETSI's Programme on Child Safeguards 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 STF201 Requirements Capture STF266 Design Guidelines STFQC Service Provider Guidelines HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

9. STF201 identified the scope and scale of the issues involved in designing, deploying and provisioning ICT products and services for children between 4 and 12 years of age HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

10. Issues identified by STF 201 • 1: Design issues • Children, as ICT users, are in most respects different from their adult counterparts. • Gender and cultural differences (including language) are not thoroughly understood as they relate to product and service design for children. • Guidelines for product evaluation for children need to be tailored to children. • Children instinctively share their experiences. • 2: Market issues • A better understanding of the market for ICT products for children and its characteristics is needed. HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

11. Issues identified by STF 201 cont. • 3: Health and safety concerns • There is still a great deal of confusion and misinformation about radiation dangers from GSM terminals. • Little is known about the social, physical and cognitive impacts of ICT use on child development. • Children's susceptibility to repetitive strain injuries (RSI) is poorly understood. • The impacts of prolonged use of visual displays and the development of vision are poorly understood. • Typically, the child's ICT workplace is not tailored to match the physical dimensions and ergonomic requirements of children. • Poorly designed and outdated ICT products are more likely to find their way into the hands of children. HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

12. Issues identified by STF 201 cont. • 4: Security and privacy concerns • Age verification mechanisms independent of identity are needed. • Parents, libraries and schools are requesting improved content control mechanisms. • Such mechanisms should not filter out useful content. • In practice, filtering and blocking agents are not a complete solution • Online marketing targeting children and increasing use of personal profiles is expected to increase. • Parents and child agencies are very negative towards this trend • Mechanisms for parental consent in connection with sales transactions initiated by children are needed. • ETSI task forces, other standards bodies, and service providers working in the area of online commerce need to take onboard issues related to sales transactions carried out by children with reference to the security and consent issues. • And limits to spending HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

13. Issues identified by STF 201 cont. • 5: User interface design issues • Help facilities, guidelines, manuals and documentation for children need to be better understood and produced. • The specific benefits for children of common interactive elements in mobile user interfaces should be investigated and explored empirically. • The availability of common, basic interactive elements increases the transfer of learning between devices and services and improves the overall usability of the entire interactive mobile environment. HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

14. Issues identified by STF 201 cont. • 6: General accessibility issues • Any "Design for all"- approach must include the youngest users • differentiating abilities and requirements. • Accessibility requirements cannot always be satisfied for all users. • Therefore, it is important to support assistive devices in order to be able to display larger font sizes or provide higher volumes of speech output to those who require it. • When acquiring new hardware and software, schools should consider options that incorporate Design for All features to facilitate access to computers for all students, including those with special needs. • Efforts by libraries and other community and public access centres to include components within their technology programs focused specifically on children should be encouraged. HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

15. Issues identified by STF 201 cont. • 7: Proactive issues • The implications of anticipated future products and services need to be understood. • Examples of such systems are communicating, networked, smart toys, image sharing (MMS and Internet), mobile edutainment and ambient systems. • Technology and service development activities need to be monitored in order to try to anticipate and evaluate their impact on children. • Specifically, implications of 3G (multimedia mobile terminals) need to be explored from the perspective of usability, content control and marketing. • Speech interfaces are very appropriate for pre-literate children and children who lack the strength and co-ordination skills needed to use other types of input devices, but these are not designed for young children. Research on speech interfaces that take into account the vocal qualities of children needs to be undertaken. HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

16. STF 201 defined the issues in the design and deployment of ICT products and services for young childrenSTF 266 worked on design guidelines….. HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

17. STF 266 - Guidelines for the design and deployment of ICT products used by children: Objectives • Contribute to the implementation of the eEurope 2005 • Actively involve relevant stakeholders • Promote a common approach that responds to the specific needs • Address the risks of negative side effects to children • Facilitate revision of European and international standards, with the view to better respecting the specific needs of young people • Contribute to the design of safer and more accessible ICT • Create and increase awareness about children’s specific needs in the design and development of ICT solutions HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

18. Scope of the work • Provide guidelines for standards developers and ICT designers • on how to take account of the needs of children (12 years and younger) in the design and deployment of ICT products and services. • Describe characteristics and ICT requirements of children • avoidance of negative impacts • Describe issues encountered by children • using ICT and recommendations that address these issues. • Develop guidelines • presented in a form that will assist the different stakeholders to identify and access those parts of the guidelines appropriate to their needs. • The stakeholders identified include • standards developers, manufacturers, designers, service providers, policy developers, parents groups, educators and groups working with children. HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

19. Organisation and content of the ETSI Guide • Introductory chaptersIntroduction, assumptions, scope • Guidelines • AnnexesRationale for the guidelines…and consequences if not done, or done badly • for children • for the industry Description of children as users of ICT products and servicesUsability Testing with Children HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

20. Guidelines Overview • Physical interaction with ICT • Physical characteristics of devices, Input devices, Output devices, Child ergonomics, Health and safety issues, consumer regulation and public procurement issues • Operational issues of Terminals and Services • Comprehending instructions, Configuration and set-up, Operation, Navigation, Handling of information • Services • Generic guidelines, Voce call services, Messaging services, On-line gaming, Transactional services, Emergency call services, Passive Location and positioning services, Internet access, browsing and applications • Content • Appropriateness of Content, Practical safeguards HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

21. Example guideline Guideline 4.2.1.4.d: Design icons to be visually meaningful to children Design icons that are easily recognizable and familiar to children and that represent items in their everyday world. New icons should be tested with a representative sample of users for meaning. (see annex C on usability testing with children). For a set of symbols to be successfully associated with the underlying functionality, the symbols have to be carefully designed, evaluated and selected see EG 201 379 [15]. Example: Use doors for going "outside", use the ? "question mark" for obtaining help. HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

22. Spreading the News • Workshops • Stakeholder workshop Sophia June 2004 • Designers workshop Brussels April 2005 • Presentations • Digital Generations: Children, Young People and New Media Conference London July 2004 • Mobile Service Strategies to the Youth Market Barcelona October 2004 • HF/Digital Home Workshop Sophia October 2004 • Press releases • throughout the process HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

23. Conclusion • Children are a ‘protected market’ • Interested third parties include parents, teachers, politicians, child protection agencies • Produced a Technical Report to highlight the issues • TR 102 133 • Produced an ETSI Guide for designers • EG 202 423 • "The EG was extremely useful and applicable to this area, which had previously been unaddressed by standardisation bodies" Chairman ICTSB at EU Presidency Meeting • Future work to address the needs of service providers in relation to deployment and provisioning • STFQC HFT2006, ETSI Sophia

24. On-line: http://portal.etsi.org clarkeam@compuserve.com Download the reports: http://pda.etsi.org/pda/queryform.asp HFT2006, ETSI Sophia