Jesse Scheckner
A bill to protect minors from predators on social media is moving forward in the Senate with mostly positive reviews, though there are some concerns about cybersecurity dangers.
Members of the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee voted 7-2 for the measure (SB 868), which takes aim at end-to-end encryption that many platforms use to safeguard their systems and users from privacy breaches.
The bill, in its current form, would require social media companies to give police tools to decrypt otherwise protected messages involving a minor when presented with a subpoena.
Companies would also have to grant a minor’s parent or legal guardian access to all the child’s account messages. And the platforms would be forbidden from allowing minor account holders to use or access messages designed to disappear after a certain period of time or upon being read, such as those offered on Snapchat and Instagram.
Spring Hills Republican Sen. Blaise Ingoglia said he was inspired to file SB 868 after participating in Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) sting operations to catch online predators.
“I was sitting in the room and I was watching, hearing and seeing some of these transactions going on with our youth, (and) it is absolutely abhorrent,” he said Tuesday.
“The one thing I’ve been hearing over and over again from law enforcement is, ‘Well, once (these social media companies) go to full encryption … it’s going to be hard (for) law enforcement (to get) the proof required to … put these people behind bars.”
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 1 in 5 children per year receives an unwanted sexual solicitation online. And 1 in 33 are targets of aggressive sexual solicitation, which involves pushes by the culprit to make offline contact. And at any given time, some 50,000 predators are on the internet actively seeking out children.
Orlando Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, who voted against SB 868 alongside fellow Democratic Sen. Tracie Davis of Jacksonville, said he agreed with the intent of Ingoglia’s legislation, but was concerned it might run afoul of free speech and privacy protections, which extend to all citizens regardless of age.
“Yes, we have parental rights. Yes, we want to protect (children) from harm. But minors also do have First Amendment rights and privacy rights as well,” he said, adding that public opposition to the bill had united typically disparate groups.
That included the James Madison Institute, whose policy analyst, Turner Loesel, warned that SB 868 would force platforms to create encryption backdoors that would put all Floridians’ information at risk, “including the very children we’re trying to protect.”
“Experts from the FBI and the NSA warn that once we create these backdoors, we can’t control who accesses this sensitive information,” he said, pointing to the Salt Typhoon attack that compromised the data of nine U.S. telecommunications companies. “It triggered one of the largest intelligence failures ever, and afterward the FBI called for more people to use encryption, not less. We can protect children without risking everyone’s safety.”
Representatives from the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, TechNet, Commerce Group and Voices of Florida expressed similar contention with the bill.
Supporters included Florida Family Voice, Florida Citizens Alliance, Florida Smart Justice Alliance and Moms for Liberty Florida.
Ingoglia said that as SB 868 advances — Tuesday marked its first of three Senate committee stops — he’ll continue to consider feedback, but he won’t move off the central premise of the legislation.
“In the event you have a 62-year-old that is contacting a 14-year-old and asking them for nude pictures or asking them to meet …at a park (so they can) have sex, (that) is information law enforcement should be able to get through a subpoena,” he said. “And quite frankly, social media companies should not be able to hide behind encryption.”
SB 868 is due next for a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, after which it would go to the Senate Rules Committee before reaching a floor vote.
Its House analog (HB 743) by Republican Reps. Michelle Salzman of Escambia County and Tyler Sirois of Merritt Island cleared the first of three committees to which it was referred with unanimous support last week.
