ITU/V. Martin
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Protecting children in cyberspace
This year, the theme of World
Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) was
“Protecting children in cyberspace”. In selecting the theme at
its meeting in November 2008, ITU’s Council drew attention to
the great importance of an issue that affects a fast-growing
number of children and teenagers worldwide. And during the
High-Level Segment of the Council meeting, ITU launched the
Child Online Protection (COP)* initiative, jointly with
international partners with the aim of creating a safe online
experience for children everywhere. It was endorsed by Heads of
State, ministers and heads of international organizations from
around the world.
Child Online Protection initiative
The COP initiative is in line with ITU’s
mandate to establish the foundations of a safe and secure
Internet for future generations. The need for COP is clear. A
decade ago, there were just 182 million people using the
Internet globally — and almost all of them lived in the
developed world. By early 2009, however, there were over
1.5 billion Internet users worldwide, and more than 400 million
of them had access to broadband.
The Internet is a growing common
resource — vastly increasing the opportunities but also the
dangers online, especially for children.
COP aims to tackle cybersecurity by
addressing legal, technical, organizational and procedural
issues, as well as capacity building and international
cooperation. Its key objectives are to identify the risks to
children in cyberspace and improve awareness of the dangers, as
well as to develop practical tools to help minimize risks and
share knowledge and experience in applying them. The COP website
acts as a repository of links to many useful resources in this
area.
A call for action
Marking this year’s World
Telecommunication and Information Society Day, ITU issued a call
to all policy-makers, regulators, operators and manufacturers in
the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector.
They were asked “to promote the adoption of policies and
strategies that will protect children in cyberspace and promote
their safe access to online resources.” This will not only lead
to the building of a more inclusive information society, but
will also help countries to meet their obligations under the
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in
November 1989.
All stakeholders, and particularly ITU
Member States, were called on to:
- Create public awareness of the
issues related to protecting children in cyberspace; to
identify policies, tools and resources for use in their
countries, and to participate in relevant ITU events in
order to share experience and best practice.
- Support ongoing work aimed at
developing guidelines for policy-makers and regulators on
protecting children online.
- Identify risks to children in
cyberspace as the Internet continues to expand.
- Build resource repositories for
common use.
- Promote capacity building aimed at
strengthening the global response to threats against
children as they venture into cyberspace.
Partners’ programmes
Under the COP umbrella, ITU is already
working with a wide range of organizations in the public and
private sectors. These organizations have a variety of
programmes for improving the safety of children and teenagers
online, of which the following are just a few examples.
INTERPOL coordinates police investigations
INTERPOL is the world’s largest
international police organization, with 187 member countries.
Based in Lyon, France, it facilitates cross-border cooperation
among police forces, and supports efforts to prevent and combat
international crime. One of the most serious of such crimes is
the sexual exploitation of children, and the Internet is
increasingly being used by perpetrators. INTERPOL estimates that
there are up 10 000 to 20 000 child victims of sexual abuse
whose images are available online.
The organization is able to use its
unique position in the international law enforcement community
to coordinate investigations, and to analyse information and
intelligence. It also manages the INTERPOL Child Abuse Image
Database (ICAID), which is one of the main tools for helping
police fight child sexual exploitation on the Internet. ICAID
contains more than half-a-million images, including video
recordings of brutal assaults. So far, the database has helped
police to identify and rescue almost 600 victims from
31 countries. It also provides a mechanism for alerting
authorities when new images of sexual abuse are found.
Egypt’s Cyber peace Initiative
Young people themselves are helping to
protect children online through a programme of the Cyber Peace
Initiative, which was launched in 2007 by the Suzanne Mubarak
Women’s International Peace Movement. The initiative was founded
by Egypt’s First Lady with the objective of empowering the youth
of every country to become catalysts for change through ICT.
Under its umbrella, the Youth Internet Safety Focus Group (or
Net-Aman in Arabic) aims to increase awareness of the
issues and to help children and young people identify harmful
content and deal with it.
The group consists of members aged
between 18 and 28, and it carries out research into the online
safety needs of young people in Egypt, in order to reflect the
wide range of concerns that they and their families have in
regard to using ICT.
Net-Aman also assesses the most appropriate guidelines
for young people on safe use of the Internet, and helps create
effective educational resources. In addition, members contribute
to wider strategic programmes and act as ambassadors and
champions of safety online from a youth perspective.
The Cyber Peace Initiative also has a
Parents Internet Safety Focus Group, established in 2008. One of
its first tasks was to conduct a survey of parents in Egypt,
which found that only 30 per cent knew what to do if their
children encountered dangerous or unsuitable content online. In
a situation where children are often much more familiar with the
Internet than the older generation, it is crucial that parents
and teachers are helped to understand the issues and the role
they can take in keeping children safe online. The Parents
Internet Safety Focus Group is working towards that goal,
through holding training sessions and workshops, at which
parents can discuss their concerns and request information about
how best to ensure that children can enjoy the benefits of the
Internet while avoiding the risks.
Europe’s Safer Internet Programme
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The European Union coordinates and
supports efforts to make the Internet a safer place, especially
for children. During the period 2009–2013, under the umbrella of
the Commission’s Safer
Internet Programme, EUR 55 million will be used to fight
illegal content and harmful behaviour. It will fund projects to:
- ensure that children, parents and
teachers are aware of how to stay safe online
- provide citizens with national
contact points to report illegal and harmful content and
conduct
- foster self-regulatory initiatives
in the field
- encourage children to become
involved in creating a safer online environment
- establish a knowledge base on the
use of new technologies and related risks, by bringing
together researchers engaged in online child safety at the
European level.
Already, “Safer Internet Centres” have
been established in 26 European countries, to develop materials
and offer information sessions for children, parents and
teachers. They also receive reports on illegal content found on
the Internet and give advice on how to stay safe online. The
centres have set up youth panels who are consulted on the
issues, and some operate helplines to deal with such problems as
cyber bullying.
The
Safer Internet Programme funds various projects to help
collect and coordinate data on child pornography that is
distributed online. It also looks at the dangers of unsuitable
content that children might see in, for example, online video
games. The PEGI Online
project is an offshoot of the Pan European Game Information
(PEGI) system. It was started by the Interactive Software
Federation of Europe in 2003 to help parents and others make
better informed decisions about what children can access on the
Internet. The PEGI system aims to provide content descriptions
that relate to age suitability. A PEGI Online Safety Code is
being developed, and games producers that comply will be able to
display a “PEGI Online” label on the access page of an online
game.
Telefónica advises on mobile phone use
The telecommunication company
Telefónica, based in Spain, operates globally and is one of the
world’s largest providers of fixed-line and mobile phone
services. It states that it is “committed to providing an
environment in which children can use new technologies safely.”
This is increasingly important as the use of mobile phones in
particular spreads among children — for example, the company
says that around a half of Spanish children between 8 and
13 years of age have mobile phones.
Telefónica is fostering responsible use
of its services by children through collaborating with
governments, other partners in industry, and with parents and
guardians. It is also helping children to make the most of the
possibilities offered by technology by offering products and
services adapted to their needs. Telefónica Móviles España, for
instance, has launched phones specifically designed for
children, with an appropriate selection of functions geared
towards education. Globally, the company is applying policies to
protect young phone users from viewing “adult” content. The aim
is to establish an appropriate mechanism in all of Telefónica’s
lines of business, offering guaranteed ways of limiting access
to this kind of service by minors.
The company has joined national and
international programmes to promote the responsible use of
mobile phones, especially when they allow access to the
Internet. It also offers guidance to the community, such as
through the publication “Child protection: O2’s
mobile phone guide for parents”, produced by the United Kingdom
arm of of Telefónica.
UNICEF promotes a protective environment
The United Nations Children's Fund, or
UNICEF, estimates that 300 million children worldwide are
subjected to violence, exploitation and abuse, and that millions
more are without adequate protection. The abuse includes the
type of paedophile predation that may be conducted online, and
which is a major factor behind the trafficking of children.
UNICEF quotes a global estimate by the International Labour
Organization, published in 2005, that of the1.39 million people
who have been forced into commercial sexual exploitation,
between 40 and 50 per cent are children. This, says UNICEF, “is
a modern form of slavery”.
UNICEF advocates and supports the
creation of a protective environment for children, in
partnership with governments, the private sector, and civil
society. In South Africa, for example, UNICEF contributed to
raising awareness of the problem of child pornography by giving
technical and financial support to a national conference on the
topic, held in 2005. The conference adopted an action plan for
the elimination of child pornography. Internationally, UNICEF,
the World Tourism Organization and ECPAT (End Child
Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for
Sexual Purposes) International launched a
Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual
Exploitation in Travel and Tourism. The project aims to
involve the tourism industry in actively combating child sex
tourism.
ITU’s continuing work
At the World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS), ITU was entrusted by leaders of the
international community with Action Line C5: “building
confidence and security in the use of ICT”. An outcome of WSIS,
the Tunis Commitment of 2005 recognized the role of ICT in the
protection of children and in enhancing their development, as
well as the need to “strengthen action to protect children from
abuse and defend their rights in the context of ICT”.
ITU will continue to pursue this
important work as an area of priority. For the future of
society, it is essential that children and young people should
be able to enjoy the fruits of the online world, without being
ensnared by its predators.
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