CSAM scanning technology announced by Apple to limit the distribution of child pornography on its services is getting a lot of attention, and now it’s time for Google to play its cards to increase the privacy of minors. Therefore, the Mountain View company has announced the additional improvement and implementation of security innovations to provide “safer experience online” for kids and teens.
The said security and privacy improvements affect several of the company’s products, although the most important are related to Google Search and YouTube.
One of the first improvements to note is that all videos uploaded by users between the ages of 13 and 17 will be private by default. This means that all material shared by people under the age of 18 through YouTube and YouTube Kids will only be visible to selected users. Anyway, the platform will allow you to change the settings so that the clips are public, but reminders will be displayed indicating who can see them.
On the other hand, YouTube also incorporates new digital well-being tools. Notifications to take a break and bedtime reminders will be enabled by default, while autoplay will be disabled.
Starting in the next few months, all users under the age of 18 will have SafeSearch enabled by default; the goal is to automatically filter inappropriate content that may appear in search results. In the coming weeks, Google will implement a policy so that those under 18 years of age can request Google to remove their images from Google Images results. The request can be made not only by the underage users themselves but also by their parents or guardians.
Also, by default, Google will block advertising segmentation based on age, sex or interest, so that the minor will not see ads of an explicit nature. In the coming months, Google will grant more filters in Family Link, the company’s family control app, so podcasts, news and web pages can be blocked on smart devices that use Google Assistant.
Another interesting point is that, soon, all accounts used by those under 18 will have the location history record turned off, and it will not be able to be turned on. Google also promise early privacy updates for minors in Play, Workspace for Education, and Google Assistant.
