Better Internet for Kids

Thousands of people in Ireland participated in Safer Internet Day (SID) 2021. Although circumstances were different this year, students, schools and organisations adapted to the situation and organised virtual activities and events to engage in meaningful and vibrant celebrations to help create a safer and better internet for all, especially young people. Some highlights follow.

The internet grants its users – including the younger ones – access to a wide range of cultural content. In the past decades, this new accessibility has changed cultural consumption practices. In particular, young people no longer clearly perceive the boundaries of legality; what is more, they do not necessarily consider the consequences of their actions online.

Child Focus launched Girl Power Squad (GPS), a unique educational tool aimed at professionals in the youth welfare services working with vulnerable girls around the issue of teenage perpetrators of human trafficking. This tool is aimed at young girls aged 11 and older.

To mark Safer Internet Day (SID) 2021, the Greek Safer Internet Centre released new research findings highlighting parents’ concerns with regards to restoring the balance between their children’s offline and online lives and their anxieties related to potential future addictive behaviours by children.

Since 2010, BEE SECURE, the Luxembourg Safer Internet Centre, has been promoting a safer, more responsible, and more positive use of digital technology among the general public.

The Dutch Safer Internet Centre created a podcast together with the Dutch Library Platform on how books can contribute to children’s online safety.

In the current age, small children are born into a world full of media. This is why media education should be considered early on in families, preferably before the child is born. How are media and different devices part of our everyday lives? How is our family’s digital well-being? How do you mind the baby or the toddler while using media yourself? Rauna Rahja, Planner at the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, reflects on this question and on what the Finnish Safer Internet Centre is doing in this regard.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is not yet working optimally when it comes to protecting the privacy of children. Of the 28,000 complaints received by the Dutch Data Protection Authority, only 1 per cent concerned the violation of the privacy of a minor user. This while children represent a third of the online user group. The Dutch Safer Internet Centre and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) cooperated on a podcast on this theme.

The Better Internet for Kids (BIK) review of the year 2020 is released on the occasion of Safer Internet Day (SID) 2021, Tuesday, 9 February. It provides a summary of a multitude of stakeholder efforts to protect children and young people online over the past year.

"Malika (the name is an alias) is 12 years old. After arguing with her family, she left home without her ID or smartphone. Malika’s mother is expecting her to come back later that night. She does not. Hours go by. Without any news, Child Focus opens a case and starts the research with the police. Everything is set up to find Malika in good health: call to witnesses, posters… But there are no solid leads. After three weeks of intense research, the young girl is finally found,” says Miguel Torres Garcia, Deputy Chief Operation Officer at Child Focus. “Each year, we open about 700 cases like Malika’s”. What if Malika had a person she trusts to talk to? Someone who is available to listen to her? Do you think she would have chosen to run away from her problems?