Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson and Congressman Mike Bishop R-District 8) were in town, June 20, to launch the Michigan Child Protection Registry.
“Nothing is more important than protecting our young people,” said Johnson at the news conference at Renaissance High School. “Today’s kids are tech savvy. Thanks to the pulse of the internet, kids have an easy connection to the world, much bigger than what we had growing up – it’s kind of like a playground without a fence and that makes protecting them so much harder.”
Parents and schools can register electronic addresses for any devices children use at ProtectMichild.com.
The free registry will block adult Internet ads from all registered contact points, such as an e-mail address, smart phone number or Instant Messenger ID, for three years or until the youngest child with the access to the contact point reaches 18 years-old.
Once the information has been entered into the registry, companies that send messages that advertise or link to prohibited products or services are required to remove the registered contact e-mail, phone number or IM within 30 days from their mailing lists.
June is National Internet Safety Month. Joining Johnson and Bishop at the news conference was Clarkston resident and mother Tonya Cunningham, who is the community organizer for the Clarkston Coalition for Youth.
Cunningham, who said her daughter has already gotten some weird calls on her phone and had a man try to Face-Time with one of her sons, is thankful to have the Protect Mi Child registry.
“This is like a do-not-call list for kids. That’s just an awesome thing that we’re thinking about those in this day and age,” she said. “We are not with them 24/7 and they get an e-mail or get something and they click on it and don’t know what it is, that could open up their device to not only get hacked, but to view something that they shouldn’t be In this day and age, everybody is growing up so fast. Let’s keep them innocent kids as long as possible.”
As a parent of a 16 year-old daughter, Johnson said she was glad when she added her daughter to the registry.
“At 16 years-old, I don’t want her seeing pornography and ads for alcohol. I don’t want her seeing online gambling,” she added. “A lot of times young people don’t have as good of wisdom as older people and their just not ready and as a matter of fact, I don’t want it on my computer either.”
So far, 500 public and private schools across the state have signed up for the registry.
Johnson said the law, which was created in 2004 when Bishop was in the state legislature, includes penalties if somebody sends such advertisements after 30 days, including up to three years in prison and up to $250,000 in civil fines.
“Now it has teeth in it and Congressman Bishop did a great job,” she said. “So now I can take on something that helps kids. If somebody does violate the law we can go after them and that’s the attorney general’s job. The system works, that’s the best thing about it.”
Bishop, also a father of three, said the registry was not only to protect, but to give them the ability to prosecute those who violated the law.
“The reason there wasn’t prosecution before was because there was no jurisdiction,” he added. “That was the whole point of the registry was to create that jurisdiction.”
Johnson has been a great leader on this, he said.
“It was not utilized like it could have been and she’s revitalized it, she’s propped it back up again and now has presented an even better tool for families,” he said. “I commend the secretary for her leadership because others passed where she saw value, so good for her.”