{"id":3,"date":"2026-04-30T19:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T19:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/community\/online-safety\/2026\/04\/30\/call-for-participation-in-online-safety-community-group\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T19:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T19:38:07","slug":"call-for-participation-in-online-safety-community-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/community\/online-safety\/2026\/04\/30\/call-for-participation-in-online-safety-community-group\/","title":{"rendered":"Call for Participation in Online Safety Community Group"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/community\/online-safety\/\">Online Safety Community Group<\/a> has been launched:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>The mission of this group is to provide a discussion forum about the technical and architectural considerations for online safety, including safety for children online. While many see a particular interest in bolstering safety for vulnerable populations such as children, safety is important to all users of the Web.<\/p>\n\n<p>The scope includes discussions of architectures for age-based restrictions to content online, as a potential tool for children\u2019s online safety. This is a complicated techno-policy issue, and proposed regulations often suffer from lack of understanding about available technologies, including their capabilities, limitations, and implications. Choices made in support of age-gating systems may have significant effects on global networks and their end users, impacting human rights as well as core architectural principles.\nThis topic and the potential for a community group was discussed at (among other places), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/2025\/11\/12-age-restrictions-minutes.html\">W3C TPAC 2025<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/15n0Cv_NPkn3SIPJxvUEhJWXL0YgFfsJRIRZO35psYLE\/edit?tab=t.0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">W3C Breakouts Day 2026<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/w3c\/privacywg\/blob\/main\/minutes\/2026\/privacywg-20260416.md#aob\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Privacy Working Group<\/a>, and follows conversation at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ietf.org\/archive\/id\/draft-iab-agews-report-02.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">IAB\/W3C Workshop on Age-Based Restrictions on Content Access in 2026<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/w3ctag\/meetings\/blob\/gh-pages\/2026\/telcons\/01-26-minutes.md#age-restrictions-on-the-web\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">with the W3C Technical Architecture Group<\/a>.\nThe amount of attention indicates that technologists and other interested parties are seeking a forum where these issues can be examined in depth, among a diverse group of experts. <\/p>\n\n<p>This CG expects to support the following goals (among others):<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>developing a shared understanding of age-based content restriction considerations;  <\/li>\n<li>deepening insights into technical mechanisms (e.g., zero-knowledge proofs, device-enforcement): their capabilities, limitations, and deployment considerations;  <\/li>\n<li>modeling threats to online safety, including harassment, unwanted contact, distressing content, disclosure of personal information (including \u201cdoxxing\u201d) and other forms of abuse, especially to vulnerable or marginalized people;  <\/li>\n<li>analyzing how technological choices influence privacy, freedom of expression, Internet fragmentation, and centralization;  <\/li>\n<li>sharing relevant resources, such as research papers and policy documents;  <\/li>\n<li>identifying and incubating technical standards work (if any) for addressing these issues.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n    \n<p>This group may publish specifications and other types of reports, either as incubation for future standardization or as information or feedback for stakeholders, including policymakers, interested in online safety.<\/p>\n    <p>Previously published <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/policies\/process\/#w3c-statement\">W3C Statements<\/a> may provide useful guidance and context for further work including the Privacy Principles (on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/privacy-principles\/#vulnerability\">vulnerability<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/privacy-principles\/#guardians\">guardians<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/privacy-principles\/#device-administrators\">device administrators<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/privacy-principles\/#protecting-web-users-from-abusive-behaviour\">protection from abusive behavior<\/a>) and Ethical Web Principles (on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/ethical-web-principles\/#noharm\">harm to society<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/ethical-web-principles\/#community\">healthy community<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/ethical-web-principles\/#allpeople\">universal access<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/ethical-web-principles\/#privacy\">privacy<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/ethical-web-principles\/#expression\">free expression<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>In order to <a href=\"\/community\/online-safety\/join\">join the group<\/a>, you will need\n    a <a\n            href=\"\/account\/request\/\">W3C account<\/a>. Please note, however, that <a\n            href=\"\/community\/about\/faq\/#is-w3c-membership-required-to-participate-in-a-community-or-business-group\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">W3C\n        Membership<\/a> is not required to join a Community Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a community initiative. This group was originally proposed on 2026-04-30 by\n    Tara Whalen. The following people supported its creation: Coralie Mercier, Nick Doty, Tara Whalen, Lola Odelola, Joey Stanford and Florian Scholz.\n    W3C&#8217;s hosting of this group does not imply endorsement of the activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The group must now <a href=\"\/community\/about\/faq\/#how-do-we-choose-a-chair\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">choose a chair<\/a>. Read more about <a\n            href=\"\/community\/about\/faq\/#how-do-we-get-started-in-a-new-group\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">how to get started in a new group<\/a> and\n    <a href=\"\/community\/about\/good-practice-for-running-a-group\/\">good practice for running a group<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We invite you to share news of this new group on social media and other channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you believe that there is an issue with this group that requires the attention of the W3C staff, please email us\n    at <a href=\"mailto:site-comments@w3.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">site-comments@w3.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you,<br\/>\nW3C Community Development Team<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Online Safety Community Group has been launched: The mission of this group is to provide a discussion forum about the technical and architectural considerations for online safety, including safety for children online. While many see a particular interest in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/community\/online-safety\/2026\/04\/30\/call-for-participation-in-online-safety-community-group\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/community\/online-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/community\/online-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/community\/online-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/community\/online-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/community\/online-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/community\/online-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/community\/online-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/community\/online-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/community\/online-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}