“Smartphones give predators 24/7 access to your child”: This former Crown attorney left the law to focus on keeping kids safe online

You retired from a 26-year career as a Crown prosecutor to focus on keeping kids safe online. How is this new mission connected to your old one? I worked with a lot of youth at the beginning of my career, many of whom struggled with self-esteem and self-worth. That led them to make poor choices with serious consequences. I felt concerned for them and wondered what I could do to help. In 2015, I wrote a children’s book, illustrated by my daughters, called Mommy, Am I Pretty? When I spoke about that book in schools and at events, parents would tell me about what was happening with their children: the effects of social media, disordered eating, self-harm, suicide attempts. Meanwhile, there were all these headlines about how Snapchat and Instagram were damaging kids’ self-esteem and fuelling an increase in adolescent anxiety and depression. I thought, Something needs to be done.

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You recently released The Family Smartphone Guide, a book about navigating digital dangers. What are some smartphone-related risks you’ve seen evidence of in criminal court? The sharing of intimate photos, cyber­bullying, child pornography, human trafficking. Social media keeps children isolated in their rooms. Their self-esteem can plummet because they compare their lives to the curated ones they see online. And lo and behold, the predators go where the children are, messaging them, “Hey, beautiful, I saw your profile. I have a modelling gig for you.”

You’ve spoken to the World Health Organization and gone into schools across North America to discuss this topic. What do audiences most want to know? The most common question I get is, “What’s the most significant danger?” I always tell them it’s kids having phones in their bedrooms overnight. Not only is there a physiological effect involved—in that the phones impact their sleep, which then impacts their academic performance—but it also gives pedophiles and predators 24/7 access to your child.

Related: This mom is on a mission to keep kids smartphone-free

Your book is modelled after Ontario’s student driver handbook. Why? Former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy used this brilliant analogy that what’s happening today in social media is the equivalent of having children in cars with no safety features driving on roads with no speed limits, no traffic lights and no rules whatsoever. When I heard that, it became obvious that we needed a driver’s-handbook equivalent for smartphones. The idea isn’t to ban smartphones. The idea is to learn to live with them. Just as we added seat belts and airbags and child seats to cars, we need to put guard rails up for our kids’ phone use through education, awareness and litigation—like the school boards’ lawsuits against Big Tech.

You’re referring to how several school boards are suing the makers of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok for interfering with their duty to educate students. Do you think the litigation will change anything? Change will require a little bit of everything. Litigation is going to be a long journey. Regulation will take time too. We can’t risk children’s mental health and safety while we wait for these formal processes to be put in place. That’s why families need to educate themselves and act now. In my mind, we can’t afford to wait.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.