IGF 2024 Launch / Award Event #86 Safety Labels as a Democratizing Force in Tech Governance

    Internet Safety Labs
    Lisa LeVasseur, Internet Safety Labs
    Irene Knapp, Internet Safety Labs

    Onsite Moderator

    Lisa LeVasseur

    Online Moderator

    Irene Knapp

    SDGs

    3.d
    16.10
    16.7


    Targets: 3.d
    "Strengthen the capacity of all countries, in particular developing countries, for early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks"
    Technology safety labels are vital risk reduction public safety resources.

    16.7
    "Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels"
    Given that technology has become a kind of invisible governing force in and of itself, there can not be inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making on any level without greater transparency of the "under the hood" behaviors of technology. An uninformed populace can not effectively participate.

    16.10
    "Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements"
    Technology currently infringes on fundamental human freedoms such as the right to privacy, autonomy, and safety. ISL believes that in an increasingly capitalistic world, product safety is also a fundamental human right (India has enacted such a law). Product safety and safety labels provide crucial information so people can understand risks to their fundamental freedoms.

    Format

    Theater

    This session will be a combination of presentation and interactive demonstration of multiple online tools and resources.

    Duration (minutes)
    45
    Description

    Seemingly simple, Safety Labels are revolutionary, democratizing tools of radical transparency that balance the power asymmetry between makers and consumers of technology.

    Internet Safety Labs (ISL), a US-based non-profit organization has developed safety standards for websites and mobile apps, methods to quantitatively measure risk in mobile apps, and a freely available tool to view Safety Labels for mobile apps (https://appmicroscope.org).

    Effective and equitable technology governance requires objective measurement of the risky behaviors of technology. Citizens and regulators alike need factual information on the inherent risks in technology. While there are ingredient labels and safety oversight for most consumables, there is no equivalent for the technology that we increasingly rely upon in nearly every aspect of our lives. Like the opacity of the harms in cigarettes in the first half of the 20th century, technology has innate harms in the products when used as intended. ISL calls these harms "programmatic harms" and they are unavoidable and largely invisible. Safety Labels provide a mechanism to name and expose these risks of harm at scale.

    This session will cover:
    1. Principles for safe software.
    2. The ISL methodology and tools for quantitatively measuring risk in mobile apps. (All of the risk dictionaries will be referenced and demonstrated: https://internetsafetylabs.org/blog/research/new-research-tools-from-is… )
    3. Walk-through of several mobile app safety labels.



    The session will composed of part presentation and part interactive demonstration. Since we'll be presenting multiple online tools/resources, both online and onsite participants should fully experience the material. We will encourage questions and observations in particular during the demonstration of the safety labels, including a discussion on what else should be included in the labels.