Kate Sim
Dr. Kate Sim (she/her) directs the COSPR program, which stands for Children's Online Safety and Privacy Research (cospr.net). She has over 14 years of experience in sexual violence prevention and response, having worked across community organizing, frontline support, government, academia, and industry in the US, UK, and South Korea. Most recently, she worked at Google where she shaped product policy on a range of children's safety issues, including non-consensual intimate imagery, financial sextortion, grooming, and help-seeking journeys for people impacted by harmful sexual behaviors. Kate holds a PhD and MSc from the Oxford Internet Institute and a BA in Gender and Sexuality Studies from Harvard University.
Session
From the EU’s “Chat Control” to the UK’s age verification, there is a growing legislative momentum across jurisdictions to regulate the Internet in the name of protecting children. The monstrosity of child sexual abuse looms large in shaping how policymakers, advocates, and the public understand the problem area of and propose solutions for detecting, reporting, and removing harmful/illegal content. Children’s safety and adults’ privacy are thus pitted against each other, deadlocked into an impasse. As technologists deeply concerned with safety and privacy, where do we go from here?