Cyber-crimes expert warns Google proposal could endanger our children

Google and other Big Tech companies are rushing headlong to establish a new protocol, called DNS over HTTPS ("DoH"), that internet safety experts fear could open the floodgates to child pornography, drugs, malware and other illegal activity on the internet and enable perpetrators to hide behind new privacy shields.

As a veteran child safety and cybercrimes police detective, now retired after 30 years, I have dedicated my career to helping children by pursuing, apprehending and prosecuting child predators. I am urging Google and the other proponents of this plan to slow down, think this through carefully and respond to questions from law enforcement and federal authorities about the dangers of this plan.

Parents, already struggling to keep up with the ever-changing online world, do not need dangerous new gateways through which their daughters and sons can be exposed to predators, pornography, cyberbullies, school violence and drug dealers.

Already, as a recent New York Times investigation found, tech companies have reported 45 million online photos and videos of children being sexually abused this year -- more than double what they found the previous year. And the number keeps growing. Now is not the time to make it even easier to spread this filth and hide behind Google's shield.

Child-safety experts at the internet Watch Foundation (IWF) are warning that the so-called privacy changes could have a "catastrophic impact" by exposing child victims to some of the worst practices on the internet.

As the IWF notes, Google's plan would mean that criminals could soon have countless new ways to bypass safeguards that child safety groups, cybersecurity experts, internet service providers and government agencies have developed. These changes could allow child predators to directly interact with children and then disappear, leaving law enforcement no means to find the offenders.

Antitrust investigators with the House Judiciary Committee have also sent a letter to Google asking the company to address serious concerns about the plan.

Specifically, the plan causing so much concern involves the internet Domain Name System (DNS), which makes the web work by connecting websites to unique addresses on the internet. Thanks to the DNS, which is often called "the phone book of the internet," a user can type in a website name and end up exactly where they want to go.

But the change could hide user requests, strengthen encryption, enable criminals to bypass essential filters like parental controls, and make abusive material freely accessible. This would come at the same time that online child-abuse groups are sharing images of ever younger children and more extreme forms of abuse. The groups use encrypted technologies to teach pedophiles how to carry out the crimes and how to record and share images of the abuse worldwide. We cannot afford to give them new tools for hiding out.

I have the following three specific questions that need to be addressed:

How will law enforcement be able to track online predators who collaborate through private email services and meet at a website to sexually exploit our children?

Will law enforcement still be able to track domestic terrorists such as school shooters who collaborate on certain websites they visit to obtain their information?

With millions of schools using Google Chromebooks instead of printed books, will this new protocol enable bypassing school filters such as Go Guardian and Securely that help keep our children safe while using a school device?

In the pursuit of greater privacy, we must not jeopardize safety. We must fully evaluate the dangerous impact these changes could introduce. We must ensure that tech companies are implementing well-informed, responsible updates that strengthen, not diminish our children's interaction with the online world.

Detective Richard Wistocki (Ret.) was a law enforcement officer for 30 years, including over two decades as an internet Crimes Investigator with the Naperville Police Department. As a cybercrimes detective and child safety proponent, he educates law enforcement, parents and students on responsible digital activity.