Insafe Weekly Update

A call for evidence for the Action plan on the protection of children against crime has been published. 

Children across the EU face a serious risk of falling victim to crime or being recruited into crime, online and offline. As announced in ProtectEU: a European internal security strategy, the EU will develop an action plan to better protect children against crime in the physical and digital worlds. The plan will present a coherent and comprehensive approach to tackling the different threats children face, outlining a set of guiding principles for EU action centred on the child’s best interests.

The call is open until Monday, 29 June 2026, during which interested parties are warmly invited to submit their input.

SICs are also encouraged to share the call for evidence widely across national networks and with stakeholders to collect a wide range of views and expertise.

The European Commission has launched a targeted consultation to seek feedback on the draft trusted flaggers guidelines under Article 22 of the Digital Services Act (DSA). 

This is a public consultation; as such, SICs are encouraged to share this information with their own contacts and networks.

The consultation will run until Friday, 26 June 2026. The Commission plans to adopt the guidelines in the second half of 2026.

Further information:

• Press release: Commission seeks feedback on draft trusted flaggers guidelines under the Digital Services Act (DSA)
• Draft guidelines: Draft Commission guidelines on trusted flaggers | Shaping Europe’s digital future
• Study on trusted flaggers: Study supporting the implementation of the trusted flaggers mechanism under the Digital Services Act (DSA)
• Consultation page: Targeted consultation: draft guidelines on trusted flaggers under the Digital Services Act (DSA)
• Updated webpage (searchable table): Trusted flaggers under the Digital Services Act (DSA)

The BIK Advisory Board provides the European Commission with a point of exchange on the ongoing implementation and future development of the BIK platform initiative and supports effective relationships between all relevant stakeholders. SIC representation in the BIK Advisory Board is through two co-funded Safer Internet Centre Coordinators, and representation is rotated annually.

We take this opportunity to thank the Coordinators of SIC Norway and SIC Greece for proudly representing the network on the Board during its first term under the current contract.

Representation in the BIK Advisory Board mainly involves actively contributing to two meetings. The next BIK Advisory Board meeting, marking its second term, will take place on the morning of Wednesday, 2 December 2026, in Brussels, Belgium (the day before SIF). SIC Coordinators are invited to express their interest in joining the BIK Advisory Board and attending the next meeting by contacting Rima by the close of business on Friday, 26 June 2026. 

The submission deadline for the new call “Ensuring comprehensive geographical coverage of the network of Safer Internet Centres (SICs)” is Thursday, 1 October 2026 (17:00 Brussels time). All relevant information regarding the call is available on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal.

The latest helpline quarterly report for Q1 of 2026 is now available from the BIK community (login first). Many thanks to everyone for submitting data. For further information, please contact Karl.

In the context of the second EU-wide evaluation of the BIK+ strategy, we will once again carry out consultations with various stakeholders, including children and young people.

SICs will be asked to organise one or more focus groups with children and young people under the age of 18, with a maximum of 10 participants per focus group (ideally 8).

To facilitate the focus groups with children and young people, SICs will receive all the relevant materials in August 2026. These will, indicatively, include a consultation protocol (in English), a child-friendly explainer of the consultation (in the national language), a discussion guide (in the national language), and a reporting template (in English). SICs will be kindly asked to organise the consultations and submit the reports to EUN by Friday, 16 October 2026 at the latest.

Please confirm your interest and availability by sending an email to BIKevaluation@eun.org by the extended deadline of Friday, 26 June 2026.

EUN will host an information session about the consultation activities after sharing the materials indicated above. If you have any questions before this session, please also contact BIKevaluation@eun.org.

There will be a meeting to discuss how we can advance response to sadistic online exploitation in networked youth environments, which will take place on Thursday, 11June 2026 at 15:00 CEST. We will hear from Amanda Goharian from Thorn, who will share insights from their recent report,which colleagues from Child Focus also contributed to.

Use this link to join the meeting. For further information, please contact Karl.

This meeting is a continuation of the discussion initiated during the INHOPE-led focus group on 29 May 2026. While that session had a specific focus group format, this session is for helplines and hotlines and offers a broader opportunity to interact directly with the European Commission on the draft guidelines for trusted flaggers. It will take place on Wednesday, 17 June 2026 at 16:00 CEST, with an agenda as follows:

• Welcome and context setting (INHOPE & EUN)
• Draft guidelines for trusted flaggers (European Commission)
• Q&A and discussion
• Wrap-up and action items

A reminder that the draft guidelines for trusted flaggers are now available, and the Commission is actively seeking feedback before the deadline of Friday, 26 June 2026 (see item under Governance above also). While scheduled at short notice, this session is arranged to ensure you have a direct platform to capitalise on this feedback window before the deadline.

Use this link to join the meeting; in case of questions, please contact Karl (for helplines) and Mariana (for hotlines.

Helplines are invited to take part in a focus group on tools for reporting cyberbullying on Friday, 26 June 2026 from 10:00 to 12:00 CEST. The objective is to find out what users need, where the gaps are, and what the ideal reporting flow should look like. This will inform the EU safety app that the EC plans to develop as part of its Action plan against cyberbullying. Please use this link to register for the meeting. For further information, please contact Karl.

Many thanks to everyone who attended the recent helpline early warning meeting. The report from the meeting is in the BIK community (login first). A discussion took place about grooming on Spotify, and colleagues from Child Focus have shared a very helpful document that outlines how this has been happening. It is available from the same link in the BIK community.

A reminder that you can also find reports and links to recordings from previous meetings in the BIK community (login first).

The next early warning meeting for helplines will take place on Wednesday, 15 July 2026 at 11:00 CEST. Use this link to join the meeting.

Please contact Karl for any further information on helpline early warning meetings.

The next meeting will take place on Wednesday, 24 June 2026 at 11:00 CEST; use this link to join.

Please remember that you can use the Teams chat to share information between meetings. A reminder also that reports and recordings from all previous meetings are available from the BIK community (login first).

Please contact Karl for any further information about awareness early warning meetings.

There will be an online meeting with Dirk Bosmans from PEGI on Thursday, 25 June 2026 at 11:00 CEST. This will be an opportunity to hear about the latest developments from PEGI, including the recent announcement that games with loot boxes will be rated PEGI 16 from June 2026. There will also be time for Q&A.

Use this link to join the meeting. For further information, please contact Karl.

Thank you to everyone who attended the meeting in May. The next online meeting for youth coordinators will take place on Thursday, 25 June 2026 at 11:00 CEST; use this link to join the meeting.

A reminder that you can find reports from previous youth coordinator meetings in the BIK community (login first).

For further information, please contact Carolina and Chiara.

Please note, this item relates to INHOPE work linked with the current BIK project (2025-2027).

INHOPE's Expert Insights webinar series is back for 2026 with sessions diving into critical and emerging topics in child online safety, featuring leading voices from the OECD, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Tech Coalition, Discord, and GIFCT. All sessions are free, online, and open to approved registrants.

The remaining planned webinar will take place on Thursday, 25 June 2026, 16:00 CEST, focused on tackling the sadistic online exploitation of children in online gaming environments.

Find out more about the INHOPE webinar series here.

Please note, this item relates to INHOPE work which falls outside of the current BIK project (2025-2027).
It is provided here for information purposes only.

The 9th annual INHOPE Summit will take place on Tuesday, 6 and Wednesday, 7 October 2026in Dublin, Ireland, and will be hosted by Meta. This year's theme, Pathways to safer systems, puts the financial sector at the centre of the conversation, exploring how technology, finance, infrastructure, and policy can build the coordinated ecosystems that child protection demands.

Find more information on the INHOPE website.

We are delighted to open the call for youth participation in this year's Safer Internet Forum (SIF), taking place in Brussels, Belgium, in December 2026.

As before, we are issuing two separate calls for the BIK Youth Panel and the SIF Youth Advisory Group (YAG). Please note that, in line with the requirements of the current BIK project (2025-2027), there are some changes to the youth participant nomination processes. As such, please ensure that you read and follow the detailed application process for the respective strand(s) you are interested in:

• BIK Youth Panel – open to youth associated with all Insafe network member countries (excluding the UK). Find further details, including information on the application process for the BIK Youth Panel, here. The deadline for applications is the close of business on Tuesday, 1 September 2026.
• SIF Youth Advisory Group (YAG) – open to BIK Youth Ambassadors associated with the EC co-funded SICs only. Find further details, including information on the application process for the SIF YAG, here. The deadline for applications is the close of business on Friday, 19 June 2026.

For further information about the calls, please contact Chiara.

We have been contacted by the Global Online Safety Alliance for Educational Resources (GO-SAFER), which is developing an online resource centre serving as a compendium of international programmes that educate children, youth and parents about online safety. This initiative is being funded by Safer Online and led by the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and the Crimes Against Children Research Center (CCRC) at the University of New Hampshire in the US.

The resource centre will provide information that allows users to search for different programme features or components and will provide communities with information on prevention education best practices. While GO-SAFER is still in the early stages of development, they are keen to include the work being done by Safer Internet Centres in Europe.

Contributors are asked to provide descriptive information for inclusion on the website (e.g., programme goals, topics covered, target audiences, structure, cost, languages, and the geographical scope of implementation at this time). The provided information will be lightly edited and incorporated into a page dedicated to the programme's features. The final product is likely to draw inspiration from the BeYou programme directory in Australia.

Safer Internet Centres are invited to submit any national resources they consider suitable via the survey at https://ccrcsurveys.org/gosafer.

If you plan to contribute, it would be helpful if you could drop an email to the BIK content mailbox confirming this, so we can track the initiative's impact on the dissemination of EU/SIC resources.

If you have any questions, please contact Sarah.

The next edition of the BIK bulletin will be published at the end of June 2026, with a focus on the recent BIK Policy monitor report and updates on other policy measures in progress to protect children and young people online.

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 Monday, 15 June 2026. 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.

• Engaging civil society in the development of the EU age-verification app

Access the full BIK news article archive here.

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

• A reminder that reports from online meetings for awareness centres and helplines are now available in the BIK community, including those from early warning meetings for both strands.
• Safer Internet Centres continue to upload resources to the BIK community resource repository: explore or upload your SIC's resources here (alternatively, access the public resource directory here).
• Equally, SICs have been uploading new helpline case studies: explore or upload your SIC's case studies here.
• Please refer to the BIK platform user guides for support with regular tasks (such as resource and helpline case study uploads).
• The Insafe induction manual also provides a good background on the tools and services available to network members, the various commitments you have as a network member (including a handy checklist by strand), and contact information for team members.

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 remember to log in to access any BIK community links.

• 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; #SaferInternetForum; #SIF2026
• 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
• Safer Internet Day (SID):
  better-internet-for-kids.europa.eu/en/saferinternetday; #SaferInternetDay; #SID2026; #SaferInternetDay2026; #SID2027; #SaferInternetDay2027
• DSA for YOUth campaign:
  #DSAforYOUth; #DSA
• 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