Better Internet for Kids

In February 2025, the Greek Safer Internet Centre, coordinated by the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH), conducted a large-scale national survey exploring the digital habits of children and young people aged 10 to 18. The survey involved 2,500 students from major cities including Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Heraklion, and Larissa, and aimed to evaluate the level of compliance with the European Digital Services Act (DSA), which came into force in 2024.

Digital threats remain a pressing concern in today’s society, as confirmed by data collected by the Croatian Safer Internet Centre (SIC). In 2024 alone, calls to the Croatian helpline increased by an alarming 110 per cent. Growing issues such as sextortion, dangerous online challenges, and digital violence demand swift and effective responses. To address these, A1 Croatia and SIC Croatia marked #BetterOnline Day by presenting Take It Down - a tool designed to support underage victims of online sexual extortion.

The Insafe network of European Safer Internet Centres is proud to announce its active participation in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2025, taking place from 23-27 June 2025, in Lillestrøm, Norway.

As part of the Better Internet for Kids (BIK) Quality Assurance Programme (QAP), the Insafe-INHOPE Coordination Teams are jointly conducting a set of fifteen country visits to national Safer Internet Centres (SICs) to better understand what is happening in the Member States: monitoring emerging issues and challenges, identifying good practices to be shared, and harvesting the results of Better Internet for Kids (BIK) policy. On 18-19 February 2025, an online cluster meeting took place with the Norwegian and Swedish SICs.

In 2024, the Finnish hotline received 8,615 reports of suspected child sexual abuse. Over 5,000 reports contained child sexual abuse material. Additionally, the hotline found more than 3,000 images or web addresses that contained child sexual abuse as part of its proactive work. Grooming or other activity related to child sexual abuse was contained in 74 reports.

The Netflix series "Adolescence" shows in a shocking way what consequences dangerous online communities, cyberbullying and psychological stress can have.

The city of Vienna has been tasked with creating its own digital charter centred around the digital rights of children and young people. In a series of workshops, 100 young people between the ages of 16 and 20 from three types of schools were involved.

The Portuguese Institute of Sport and Youth (IPDJ), part of the Portuguese Safer Internet Centre, participated in the two largest education, training, and youth-centred fairs in Portugal: Qualifica (12-15 March 2025) at Exponor in Oporto, and Futurália (26-29 March 2025) at the Lisbon International Fair (FIL).

Editing images and videos using AI is very popular among children and young people. The Austrian Safer Internet Centre explains what parents should look out for in such apps.

Safer Internet Day is celebrated annually on the second Tuesday in February, and this year for the first time with a full month of activities. As a partner of the Safer Internet Centre Consortium in Portugal, Microsoft joined forces with the National Republican Guard (GNR) and local municipalities to promote a safer and more responsible use of online technology. With this year's theme of 'digital citizenship', the mission is to empower every person and organisation in the world to achieve more.