As internet use develops, minors are increasingly being exposed to harmful content, often against their will. According to a study by the European SAFT programme (Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Iceland), a quarter to a third of young people aged 9-16 surveyed said they had been accidentally exposed to violent, offensive, sexual or pornographic content within the previous year .
On 24 September 1998 the European Council adopted the Recommendation 98/560/EC on the protection of minors and human dignity in audiovisual and information services. This Recommendation is to be revised in the coming months by the European institutions. In the light of this revision, the main purpose of the EICN policy statement is to highlight the key principles upon which the members of the Network agree, and to stimulate the thinking of the European institutions on this important issue. This statement is largely based on work conducted locally by several members of the network (including bodies such as the French Forum des droits sur l’internet, the Belgian Observatoire des droits de l’internet and the British Internet Watch Foundation), which have already released recommendations to their own authorities on this subject.
The EICN wishes to highlight the following five key principles :
1. Education is the key to greater online safety ;
2. Strong support for the development of age-control devices could help European content providers leading the way towards more safety for kids online ;
3. Parental control software and services are useful complementary tools for shielding children from harmful content ;
4. Spam should be fought against as a carrier of harmful content ;
5. European policy makers, members of the industry and users should aim at making next-generation mobile Internet more secure than the Internet at large.
The EICN promotes the principle of coregulation, which implies cooperation by all members in the « chain of responsibility » (public authorities, content and service providers, users - parents and children).
A working group on Child protection and mobile phone
This working group was launched in April 2004. It is conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute (OII). It will gather information regarding the best practices of local mobile phone operators, content providers and distributors (for example, on harmful content or monitoring of chatrooms) on a European scale. The final report will be published within one year.
For more information on this group :
Dr Victoria Nash, Policy & Research Officer, Oxford Internet Institute
victoria.nash@oii.ox.ac.uk
