By Larry Magid

Editor's Note: We're very proud that Larry Magid, one of the chief contributors to Yahoo! Kids Parents, is a member of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force--and played a role in producing this important and far-reaching report. Here is his insider's summary of the report's finding.

A long awaited report from the Internet Safety Technical Task Force (ISTTF) concludes that children and teens are less vulnerable to sexual predation than many have feared.

I served on that task force as a representative of ConnectSafely.org, the non-profit internet safety organization I co-founded along with Anne Collier.

The group, which had five meetings during the course of 2008, included representatives of Internet and social networking companies including MySpace, Facebook, Google and Yahoo, security and identity authentication vendors such as Aristotle, IDology and Sentinel. Other non-profits included Enough is Enough, iKeepSafe, WiredSafety, Center for Democracy and Technology and Progress and Freedom Foundation.

The task force was formed as a result of a joint agreement between MySpace and 49 state Attorneys General. It was chaired by John Palfrey from Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet&Society.

Over the past couple of years, several state AGs have been looking into potential dangers to youth, and some have called for social network sites to use age verification technology to confirm the ages of users in an attempt to prevent adults from or interacting online with minors.

An important component of our work resulted from contributions of two working groups -- the Research Advisory Board (RAB) and the Technical Advisory Board (TAB). These boards were made up of leading scholars in their fields.

The RAB looked only at peer reviewed studies to be sure it was only quoting data that had been rigorously and scientifically collected and analyzed. The TAB examined a variety of technologies -- mostly from companies -- that might help protect children on the Internet. Both the RAB and TAB were extremely rigorous and thorough. It was a privilege to work with such a prestigious groups of experts.

Based on studies analyzed by the RAB, the task force concluded that "actual threats that youth may face appear to be different than the threats most people imagine" and that "the image presented by the media of an older male deceiving and preying on a young child does not paint an accurate picture of the nature of the majority of sexual solicitations and Internet-initiated offline encounters."

Greatest Risk From Cyber-Bullies, Not Predators

While the task force found that youth risk from predators is a concern, it found that the overwhelming majority of youth are not in danger of being harmed by an adult predator they meet online. To the extent that young people have received an unwanted online sexual solicitation, data showed most was from other teens or very young adults in their late teens or early twenties.

The task force did find that a substantial number of young people do face risks online but they are more likely coming from other youth. The report found that "bullying and harassment, most often by peers, are the most salient threats that minors face, both online and offline." The actual risk is hard to quantify, but it is clearly much higher than the risk of being harmed by a predator. Some studies suggest that as many as 49 percent of youth have experienced some type of bullying or harassment. A study by Michelle Ybarra and Janice Wolak found that "39 percent of victims reported emotional distress over being harassed online."

Another risk discussed by the Task Force was people being asked to take nude pictures of themselves. This has traditionally been seen as something that predators do as part of the grooming process, but it turns out that teens are increasingly exchanging nude photos via cell phones. So called "sexting" is becoming increasingly popular. NetFamilyNews reports on a study that claims that 20% of teens say they've sent or posted naked or semi-naked pictures of themselves.

The task force found that online risks "are not radically different in nature or scope than the risks minors have long faced offline, and minors who are most at risk in the offline world continue to be most at risk online." For example, "a poor home environment full of conflict and poor parent-child relationships is correlated with a host of online risks."

Age Verification Technology

The Attorneys General who called for the task force were anxious for us to study the efficacy of using age verification to help limit inappropriate contact between adults and children online.

Our Technical Advisory Board found that age verification technology can be used to identify adults and therefore help prevent minors from engaging in adult-only activities (such as accessing adult content or purchasing alcohol or tobacco) but that the technologies are problematic when it comes to determining the age of minors.

There were several technologies submitted by companies that could identify adults based on accessible records such as credit reports, criminal history, and real estate transactions, but these relatively automated systems cannot reliably identify or verify the age of minors because, as the TAB concluded, "public records of minors range from quite limited to nonexistent."

Age verification options presented by some companies would allow parents to request that their child's school verify his or her identity and age, but these proposals have their own critics, including those who worry about the cost, the possibility of privacy or security leaks, and the financial model presented in some cases that includes providing marketers with information about kids. Brad Stone of the New York Times wrote an excellent article about these issues.

The TAB also looked at "peer-based" verification schemes that "allow peers in a community to vote, recommend, or rate whether a person is in an appropriate age group based on relationships and personal knowledge established offline" but there were concerns that "minors might organize against another minor in their ratings or recommendations in an online form of bullying."

Although the TAB expressed "cautious optimism" about the possibility of using technology to protect kids, it concluded that "every technology has its problems" and that "no single technology reviewed could solve every aspect of online safety for minors, or even one aspect of it one hundred percent of the time." The bottom line was that "technology can play a role but cannot be the sole input to improved safety for minors online" and that "the most effective technology solution is likely to be a combination of technologies."

But even if these technologies can be employed effectively, there remains the question of whether they are necessary or helpful. Using technology to separate kids from grown-ups doesn't address the fact that kids are far more at risk from other kids than from adult predators.

Report Has Some Critics

The task force report has its critics including some of the state Attorneys General who called for the creation of the task force. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper told the Wall Street Journal that the "task force relied on research that was outdated and doesn't take into account the explosion of social networking sites after 2006. South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster reportedly withdrew from the group of Attorneys General that commissioned the task force telling the Associated Press that the report created a "false sense of security on the issue of child Internet safety."

Critics of the report can certainly point to sting operations and the TV show "To Catch a Predator" that demonstrate that there are plenty of men who troll chat rooms and engage in sexual banter with people they believe to be underage. There are also plenty of cases where those men have tried to meet up with these youth only to discover that the young person was actually a police officer posing as a minor.

But there is a difference between the number of people caught up by sting operations and the number who actually harm children. Despite efforts to obtain that information, the Task Force was unable to get concrete numbers from Attorneys General or anyone else in law enforcement about actual cases of children who were harmed. Based on the data that is available, we know of relatively few such cases.

Still, there remains a minority of youth who--for a variety of psychological and social reasons--are vulnerable both online and offline. More research needs to be done to identify these young people and provide them with resources and protective services.

The fact that most kids are safe is reassuring but it's not sufficient. If even one child is in danger, then there is work to be done, and that is one thing everyone who cares about this issue can agree on.

Larry Magid is technology analyst for CBS News and CNET.