Better Internet for Kids

The main event this year was a conference held in Copenhagen on 26 February, called "Conference about the rights of children and young people in digital spaces". The conference was intended for professionals working with digital rights.

Presentations and debates

The programme of the conference mostly consisted of presentations with the aim of shedding light on digital rights from several perspectives. The talks included: 

• An introduction to the Digital Services Act from a children’s rights lawyer from Save the Children Denmark.
• An overview of The Media Council for Children and Young People’s role as an awareness centre in SIC DK, which works towards spreading knowledge to strengthen the digital rights of children and young people. This included an introduction to a new report about young people’s use of digital services in Denmark.
• An overview of the Centre for Digital Youth Care’s role as a helpline in SIC DK, which consists of several online services. The talk focused on the rights of children and young people to seek out information and participate in communities online.
• An overview of Save the Children’s role as a hotline in SIC DK, which includes the service ReportIt—an anonymous platform to report CSEM (Child sexual exploitation material). The talk also discussed the lack of Danish legislation on the subject and what is being done to change it.
• An introduction to a project by UNICEF Denmark called All Right, which aims to give tools to professionals working with children, so they can engage in the digital lives of children and young people.
• An introduction to the Finnish project GDPR4CHLRN, which is designed to inform children and young people about data protection. 

Besides the presentations, the conference also included a panel debate on the digital rights of children and young people on larger gaming platforms. The panellists included a media scholar from the University of Copenhagen, a member of the Data Ethical Youth Council, the CEO of the trade association Games Denmark, and a representative from Nimbi, the new video game institute in Denmark.

Videos to include young voices

Since the conference was dedicated to presentations from professionals, there was also a desire to include the voices of the group it is all about—children and young people. For the conference, SIC DK produced four videos. The videos consisted of conversations between children and young people regarding four subjects: 

• ‘Digital bullying and well-being’
• ‘Digital safety’
• ‘Digital rights’
• ‘Disturbing content’ 

The participants in the videos included 3rd, 6th, and 7th graders from two different schools, as well as a member of a local youth council. The children in the videos created the questions themselves while discussing the four overall themes.

Evaluation

After the conference, the participants received a survey to evaluate the event. Feedback was received from around half of the participants. The responses have primarily been positive (98 per cent rated the conference as either ‘good’ or ‘very good’), with many indicating that they would participate in a similar event in the future. 

Learn more about Safer Internet Day activities in Denmark on their SID page on our platform!

Further information about the Danish Safer Internet Centre can be found on the Better Internet for Kids (BIK) public portal, including links to its national websites and other contact information. Similar information can be found on the BIK portal for all Safer Internet Centres in Europe.