New hotlines to allow the public to report illegal internet content are being backed by the European Commission as part of a 4-year programme to make the internet safer for children. Safer Internet plus, a new Ä50m (34m) plan proposed by the European Commission today, will run from 2005 to 2008. It will build upon EU work under way since 1996 to combat illegal and harmful internet content.
Encompassing new media, such as video streams, and new issues such as ìspamî, it would involve accession countries, and focus more closely on end users: raising parents, educators and children. Safer Internet plus also aims to mobilise talent in the public, private and voluntary sectors to prepare hard-hitting safety campaigns. Its four action lines are: fighting illegal content; tackling unwanted and harmful content (including spam); promoting a safer environment; making parents and teachers more aware of the technology available to protect children when online.
îChildren should have the right to use the internet freely to chat, to learn or to play games, commented Enterprise and Information Society Commissioner Erkki Liikanen. But to move freely on line, children must be protected from the risk of being exploited by adults.
Activities under the four Safer Internet plus action lines will include:
Fighting against illegal content
New Hotlines to allow members of the public to report illegal content to the appropriate body for action will be set up. The Commission proposes to fund network co-ordination and individual hotlines across the whole of Europe.
Tackling unwanted and harmful content
The programme will provide funding for technological measures that empower users to limit the amount of unwanted and harmful content which they receive, or can be used to assess the effectiveness of available filtering technology. Funding will also be available to support the development of effective filtering technology and promote exchanges of information and best practice on effective anti-spam enforcement.
Promoting a safer environment
The European Union supports a self-regulatory approach, offering flexibility and understanding of the needs of the medium in an area combining high technology, rapid change and cross-border activity. The Commission will provide a platform for national co-regulatory or self-regulatory bodies to exchange experience - The Safer Internet Forum.
Awareness-raising
The Commission proposes to support systematic information about safer internet use, particularly for personalised, interactive and mobile applications, linked with other EU actions on media education and internet literacy. The Commission will concentrate on pump-priming, encouraging the multiplier effect and exchange of best practices through a network.
According to a forthcoming Eurobarometer survey, half of Europeís parents do not think their children know what to do if a situation on the internet makes them uncomfortable. An EU Safety, Awareness, Facts and Tools (SAFT) survey last year found that 46% of children in Northern Europe who chat on the internet say someone has used it to ask to meet them and 14% have actually met someone in this way, but only 4% of parents believe that their children have done so. The Safer Internet plus programme aims to change this, by empowering parents and teachers to use on-line safety tools.
Safer Internet projects have contributed to several remarkable achievements, including the October 2003 break-up of a world-wide child-porn ring thanks to a tip from the Internet hotline association INHOPE. Filtering services have been compared and new self-regulation models for mobile content proposed. The importance of safer internet awareness among parents has been underlined through several EU-funded surveys, showing that European parents seriously underestimate their childrenís daily exposure to harmful content and dangerous situations online.
More information can be found
European Commission proposes further EU action to combat child porn, racism and spam on the internet
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