Insafe Weekly Update

A BIK platform infrastructure upgrade is scheduled to take place on Thursday, 4 September 2025, at 12:00 CEST for a duration of at least one hour.

Please note, the platform will not be accessible at this time for public viewing or uploading of community content/resources.

Thank you for your understanding. 

We hope you all had a wonderful summer break and have returned revitalised for a busy autumn ahead. While the Insafe Weekly Update has been relatively light over recent weeks, we are now starting to see actions intensify; we hope this short recap is useful.

For those who might have missed it, a reminder that there were a number of European Commission announcements during July, namely:

• The EC launched guidelines on the protection of minors under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The guidelines will ensure that children and young people can continue to enjoy the opportunities the online world offers, such as learning, creativity and communication, while minimising the risks they face online, including exposure to harmful content and behaviour. Read more about the guidelines on the EC website.
• The EC also released the first version of an EU white-label age-verification blueprint, as a basis for a user-friendly and privacy-preserving age verification method across Member States. Read more about the blueprint on the EC website.

Currently ongoing is the EC's public consultation and call for evidence on cyberbullying; the support of SICs in amplifying the call is much appreciated (read more below).

Building on this important topic, a similar child-friendly consultation on cyberbullying will be launched soon, along with the promotion of a new Joint Research Centre (JRC) policy brief on definitions of cyberbullying. Look out on socials for more on these in the coming days, and we'll bring you more detailed information in next week's Insafe Weekly Update.

We've also been very busy in the Insafe Coordination Team over the summer break. Below, you'll find information on the new large-scale campaign, DSA for YOUth - Protecting minors by design, taking place this autumn, the new BIK MOOC on supporting young people in building and managing healthy online relationships, as well as high-level plans for the Safer Internet Forum (SIF) 2025 (more information and registration details to follow soon).

Additionally, you'll find news on the new Best SIC Resource of the Year award, launching in BIK Phase 6. Equally, we're currently finalising a new lump sum mechanism (LSM) scheme for BIK Phase 6; we'll bring you more information on that soon.

And, of course, there will be the usual selection of network events and opportunities. You can already find details of the schedule for awareness and helpline early warning meetings below, and we'll bring you registration and updates on the forthcoming online Insafe training meeting (and corresponding resource competition) very soon too.

A reminder that the current call for proposals for Safer Internet Centres will close tomorrow, Tuesday, 2 September 2025 (17:00:00 CEST). All relevant information can be found on the HaDEA website.

In the BIK Phase 6 project, EUN will continue to convene the Consultative Group (CG) for the BIK Knowledge hub. The objectives of this group are to:

• provide feedback to EUN in the refinement and implementation of the BIK Knowledge hub and the BIK Policy monitor;
• provide expert advice on relevant sectoral and international developments pertinent to the BIK Phase 6 work on the Knowledge hub;
• support the dissemination and take-up of Knowledge hub resources and outputs;
• provide guidance on the potential future development of the Knowledge hub.

The group also serves as an important vehicle for knowledge exchange, providing crucial connections with organisations, academia, and relevant NGOs, and acts as a critical multiplier, amplifying BIK outputs.

The CG will comprise various stakeholders and experts with specialist expertise regarding the impact of digital transformations on children and young people, including European Commission representatives, Safer Internet Centre representatives, BIK Youth Ambassadors, and representatives from academia, international organisations, civil society, and policy-making communities. Various EUN staff from the BIK team will also attend meetings of the group, which will take place once every six months, with the first meeting scheduled for the second half of October.

If SIC colleagues, and/or any of your BIK Youth Ambassadors, are interested in joining this group, please contact Valentina via consultativegroup_knowledgehub@eun.org by close of business this Wednesday, 3 September 2025.

The European Commission is currently conducting a public consultation and a call for evidence to support the development of an Action plan against cyberbullying.

The Action Plan will be adopted in early 2026 to build a comprehensive, inclusive, and effective strategy to combat cyberbullying across the EU. It will focus on minors while also considering other elements of cyberbullying, including gender and the heightened vulnerability of certain groups of youth up to the age of 29, such as persons with disabilities, LGBTIQ, migrants and those from religious, racial or ethnic minorities, who are more affected by cyberbullying.    

The public consultations will be open until Monday, 29 September 2025 and are available on the Have your Say portal.

The questionnaire is also available in Word format for screen reader users and in an easy-to-read version. 

Safer Internet Centres are encouraged to share information on this consultation with their own contacts and networks. 

The European Commission has launched a call for evidence and public consultation on the forthcoming Digital Fairness Act.

The Digital Fairness Act will strengthen protection and digital fairness for consumers, while ensuring a level playing field and simplifying rules for businesses in the EU. It will address specific challenges as well as harmful practices that consumers face online, such as deceptive or manipulative interface design, misleading marketing by social media influencers, addictive design of digital products and unfair personalisation practices, especially where consumer vulnerabilities are exploited for commercial purposes. Young people are an important consumer segment with specific consumption patterns and often act as early adopters of new technologies and digital products. The Digital Fairness Act will pay particular attention to the protection of minors online.

The call for evidence and public consultation will be open until Thursday, 9 October 2025 (midnight Brussels time)and are available on the Have Your Say portal. For more information, please refer to the dedicated press release.

Under BIK Phase 6, EUN continues to incentivise the network to create, share, translate and localise new awareness-raising materials and resources, available through the BIK portal. In addition to the already established bi-annual resource competitions, which take place alongside the Insafe and joint Insafe-INHOPE training meetings, EUN is creating a new competition – the “Best SIC Resource of the Year” award – with the aim to provide Safer Internet Centres with an additional opportunity to create and showcase their best resources, materials, reports and tools. Please find essential information about the award below:

• The award will build on submissions to the resource competitions: the entries selected to compete will be the winning entry, and the entry that came in second place from each edition of the resource competitions as voted by SICs, for a total of four competing entries.
• The award follows an annual cycle, whereby each time the four competing resources are drawn from the previous academic year. The competing resources for the first edition of the award have already been contacted.
• The promotion of the competing resources, and voting for the “Best SIC Resource of the Year” award, will be part of the annual Safer Internet Forum for both onsite and online participants, with the winner of the award being announced as part of the SIF programme.

The “Best SIC Resource of the Year” award grants recognition and prestige to the winning resource among the network, and EUN will focus their efforts in disseminating the winning resource across all channels, utilising key points in the BIK calendar to ensure good visibility and significant dissemination.

More information about the award will follow. In the meantime, if you have any questions about the new competition, please contact Annarita.

To help with planning, you can find a list of early warning meeting dates for helplines and awareness centres for the next 12 months in the BIK community (login first). The individual meeting dates are also included in the BIK community event calendar. For any further information, please contact Karl.

The next early warning meeting for helplines will take place onWednesday, 17 September 2025, at 11:00 CEST; join the meeting using this link. Please remember it is possible to use the Teams chat to share any information between meetings. Please contact Karl for any further information.

A reminder that you can find a report from the last helpline early warning meeting, along with a link to the recording, in the BIK community (login first).

The next early warning meeting for awareness centres will take place on Monday, 22 September 2025 at 11:00 CEST; use this link to join. Please remember it is possible to use the Teams chat to share any information between meetings. Please contact Karl for any further information.

A reminder that a report from the last awareness early warning meeting, along with a link to the recording, is now available in the BIK community (login first). 

We have developed a good practice guide on working with very young users, as shared in the June 2025 edition of the BIK bulletin and available to download here.

The guide was written by Stéphane Chaudron, and we will have an online meeting on Tuesday, 30 September 2025, at 14:00 CEST, where Stéphane will present the guide and share some key information on how to work effectively with younger users online. Use this link to join the meeting. If you have any questions or require additional information, please contact Karl.

INHOPE has released a new good practice guide for Trusted Flagger applications under the DSA. The guide, funded by the European Commission as part of the Better Internet for Kids programme under the Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL), offers practical advice to support hotlines and other child online safety organisations in the application process and provides clear guidance on how to demonstrate compliance with DSA requirements. 

For further information and to access the guide, please visit the INHOPE website.

Launching in mid-September 2025, the “DSA for YOUth - Protecting minors by design” campaign will raise awareness of the Article 28 guidelines on protecting minors online under the Digital Services Act (DSA), helping children, parents, teachers, and caregivers understand how new guidelines on age verification, privacy, and safety-by-design features make the online world safer and more transparent.

• Timeline: The campaign will run in phases from 15 September to 7 November 2025, starting with a teaser phase, followed by a more active launch aligned with the informal meeting of Ministers for Telecommunication on 9-10 October 2025 (as part of the Danish Presidency of the Council of the European Union), and continuing activities leading up to the Safer Internet Forum on 4 December 2025.
• Campaign outputs: The campaign will deliver a wide range of outputs, including a family-friendly booklet on the Art. 28 guidelines, an online toolkit, youth-created videos, webinars, and SIC insight articles, supported by a multi-platform social media campaign and influencer collaborations. 

In the coming months, SICs will be encouraged to support the campaign in various ways:

1. Providing insights through articles
   SICs are encouraged to showcase their work in enforcing the DSA and helping children, parents, and caregivers address online harms. Through insight articles, social media posts, and features such as ‘day in the life’ stories, the campaign will highlight national best practices, promote trusted flaggers, and provide accessible resources that SICs can share and adapt for their audiences.
   When: Articles will be collected from September through early October; more information to follow in the coming weeks.
2. Participating in teacher and/or parent webinars
   SICs are invited to lead or participate in campaign webinars (there will be one for teachers and one for parents), sharing guidance on implementing the DSA in schools and at home, showcasing best practices, and offering practical strategies to enhance children’s online safety.
   When: Webinar dates will be scheduled between 20 - 31 October 2025.
   Deadline: Please express your interest in participating by contacting Inna by Wednesday, 10 September 2025. We will then work with interested SICS to select a date and begin developing the concepts and content for the webinars. Please note that participating SICs will be fully supported by the BIK comms team at EUN throughout the webinar development and delivery process. The webinars will be conducted in English.
3. Proofreading the family-friendly booklet
   SICs will be asked to review the translated versions of the family-friendly booklet, which summarises the Article 28 guidelines, to ensure clarity, accuracy, and alignment with local terminology and context.
   When: Translated versions will be shared with SICs by 30 October 2025, with feedback required within two weeks.
4. Acting as campaign multipliers
   SICs are encouraged to actively follow the campaign, promote its messages through their channels, and adapt content to their local language and cultural context.
   When: Throughout the full campaign period, 15 September – 7 November 2025. As is typical, the BIK comms team at EUN will provide a variety of resources and materials to support SICs in this process.

We have already begun active preparation for the campaign and will continue to provide updates in the coming weeks. Please stay tuned, or in the meantime, feel free to contact Inna with any questions or suggestions on the campaign. 

The Polish Safer Internet Centre (run by the NASK National Research Institute and the Empowering Children Foundation) is hosting the 19th international conference "Keeping children and young people safe online". The conference gathers hundreds of participants each year from the education sector, public administration, non-governmental organisations, and the technology sector. It is the largest recurring event in Poland dedicated to children's online safety. Safer Internet Centre colleagues are welcome to participate.

Key information:

• 23–24 September 2025: On-site conference at Hotel Airport Okęcie; online participation is also possible (presentations during the first two days will be available in Polish, English, and Polish Sign Language (PJM)).
• 25–26 September 2025: Online webinars (conducted in Polish only).

Further information, including the agenda, speakers, and registration, is available here.

Participation in the conference is free of charge (travel and accommodation costs not included).

For further information, please contact: kontakt@saferinternet.pl.

From group chats to gaming servers, today’s youth connect, learn and grow through online relationships. But alongside connection comes some risks: cyberbullying, grooming, peer pressure, and more.

This new BIK MOOC (massive open online course), Helping kids build and manage healthy online relationships, offers practical guidance for educators, youth workers, and caregivers to navigate these challenges with care and confidence. Starting on Monday, 6 October 2025 and continuing across 5 self-paced weeks, course participants can explore real strategies, discover ready-made tools, and join a European community of professionals facing similar challenges. The MOOC will be delivered in English.

Further information and online registration are available here.

Safer Internet Centres are encouraged to share information on the BIK MOOC with their own networks and contacts. A promo pack is available to support SICs with this (with sample texts, social media posts, and visuals). 

As you may already be aware, Safer Internet Forum (SIF) 2025 will take place in a hybrid format in Brussels and online on Thursday, 4 December 2025.

With a title of Why age matters: Protecting and empowering youth in the digital age, this year's edition will focus on how age assurance, in connection with a broader range of protective and preventive measures, can help to protect children and young people from harmful content while providing them with age-appropriate, positive online experiences. It will bring together a variety of public and private stakeholders, including youth, to discuss the current state of play across and beyond the European Union, with reference to recent political and technical solutions being implemented

The BIK Youth Panel will also convene in Brussels during that week, and we know that many of you will be sending a youth representative along with a corresponding chaperone from your Safer Internet Centre.

As in recent years, due to capacity restrictions at the venue and in line with the EC’s green agenda, we need to limit in-person attendance at the Safer Internet Forum to TWO colleagues from each Safer Internet Centre (this will typically be the SIC Coordinator (or their designate) and the youth chaperone (if this is someone from your SIC)). Online participation is available for colleagues who are unable to attend in person; there are no restrictions on the number of online attendees.

Registration will commence in the second half of September. We will write to SIC coordinators nearer that time to further elaborate on the schedule for the week and the corresponding registration process, and ask you to confirm your two in-person attendees.

In case of questions in the meantime, please contact saferinternetforum@betterinternetforkids.eu.

"On a quest for facts" is a new educational game designed to learn and practice critical thinking, fact-checking, and the use of EU resources. Aimed at young people aged 16 to 18, this classroom activity centres on a fictional social media post, challenging students to investigate and resolve false claims using the help of six engaging EU-themed characters.

Produced by the Publications Office of the EU and the European Commission Representation in Luxembourg, the resource is currently available in English and French. 

Join the fun and help foster a generation of informed, discerning digital citizens! Discover more and access the resource here.

Safer Internet Centres are encouraged to disseminate this new resource.

The next edition of the BIK bulletin will be published at the end of September 2025, with news on the recent EC announcements on the Protection of Minors package (guidelines on the protection of minors, EU white-label age-verification blueprint, and so on). This edition will also spotlight a new BIK autumn campaign - DSA for YOUth: Protecting minors by design - launching in September 2025 (see more above).

As always, we also invite Safer Internet Centres (and their partners) to contribute to the BIK bulletin with general articles on news, resources or events. The content deadline is the close of business on Wednesday, 17 September 2025. All contributions or queries should be addressed to content@betterinternetforkids.eu.

As a reminder, we generally suggest that articles should be 300 - 600 words in length (but longer focus pieces are fine too), along with copyright-cleared images/photographs/logos if appropriate (please note that we cannot accept AI-generated images). The BIK team reserves the right to edit contributions for house style, etc., but we try to keep these changes to a minimum.

The latest articles include:

• Age assurance across Europe: how countries are safeguarding minors online (Knowledge hub insight: short read)
• SID Awards 2025 in Ireland (SIC IE)
• Youth from Lithuania and Latvia reimagine a safer, kinder internet (SIC LT)
• Preventing and combating cyberbullying: national and European strategies discussed at C-DAYS 2025 (SIC PT)

Access the full BIK news article archive here.

Please contact the BIK content mailbox with any article submissions or if you have any queries.

A reminder that reports from online meetings for awareness centres and helplines are now available in the BIK community.

And, as the summer draws to a close, several Safer Internet Centres have been busy uploading resources to the BIK community resource repository: explore and upload your SIC's resources here (alternatively, access the public resource directory here).

Please remember to log in to access these links.

Need help with the BIK platform?
Please refer to the BIK platform user guides for support with regular tasks (such as resource and helpline case study uploads).

Alternatively, we are happy to schedule short online support calls at any time. Please use the contact form on the BIK platform or contact the BIK support mailbox initially. We will then schedule a call at a mutually convenient time.

Please note the updated URLs for the new BIK platform:

• Better Internet for Kids (BIK):
  better-internet-for-kids. europa.eu; #BIK; #BIKbulletin
• BIK strategy (BIK+):
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/bik/bik-plus-strategy; #BIKplus
• Safer Internet Forum (SIF):
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/sif; #SIF2024; #SIF2025; #SaferInternetForum
• BIK Knowledge hub:
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/knowledge-hub; #BIKPolicyMap
• BIK Youth:
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/bik-youth; #BIKyouth; #Pledge2Youth
• Safer Internet Day (SID):
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/saferinternetday; #SaferInternetDay; #SID2025; #SID2026
• Media literacy campaign:
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/media-smart-online; #MediaSmartOnline
• Child and youth consumer protection campaign:
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/adwiseonline; #AdWiseOnline
• Project Facebook profiles:
  Insafe, Safer Internet Day, Insafe network closed Facebook group, INHOPE
• Project X (formerly Twitter) profiles:
  @insafenetwork; @safeinternetday; @BIK_youth; @inhope_pr
• Project LinkedIn profile:
  Better Internet for Kids