Insafe Weekly Update

As you know, we are currently redeveloping the BIK platform, for launch in the autumn season (the exact date is yet to be confirmed). In preparation, we are undertaking some content cleaning and migration tasks over the summer, and for some of these, we will need input from SIC colleagues.

The first task is to review SIC resource uploads to identify resources that should be migrated and those that are no longer current. To kick off this process, we will contact SIC Coordinators and content contacts over the coming days. Many thanks in advance for your support.

If you have any questions about any aspect of the current or future portal, please contact the BIK content mailbox.

The European Commission is launching a 12-week open stakeholder consultation on the Digital Europe Programme as part of the mid-term evaluation. 

The consultation seeks to gain insights into stakeholders’ experience with the programme, their perspectives on how relevant the objectives of the programme are to the digital transformation of companies and the public sector, how the programme responds to current and future technological trends, the perceived coherence with other EU or national/local funding, and what they consider to be its expected impact. The aim is to gather diverse perspectives from small and medium-sized enterprises to non-governmental organisations, academia, social partners, public authorities, and other public and private organisations and citizens from EU Member States and associated countries. 

The questionnaire is available on the Commission’s Have Your Say portal in English, French, and German, and contributions in any official EU language are welcome. It will be open until Friday, 20 September 2024. To take part, please follow this link to the consultation and click on Go to consultation.  

The feedback received will help guide the design of future initiatives and inform reflections on the potential for simplification and burden reduction within the Digital Europe Programme. The scope of the mid-term evaluation and the proposed methodology are briefly described in the Call for Evidence, which is available in all EU languages on the same website. Feedback can also be provided on this document (to do so, go to Give feedback).  

Further information about the consultation can be found in the news item here. 

SICs are kindly invited to respond to the questionnaire and also help spread the word and raise interest to maximise the potential for meaningful feedback.  

Thanks to all SIC colleagues who attended the recent information session on DSA support tasks. Notes and slides from the session are now available in the BIK community (login first).

The Netherlands ran a pilot on the implementation of the DSA and the role of a Safer Internet Centre (mainly focusing on the helpline, but also relevant for the hotline). Part of this pilot is described in a White Paper titled Advice on setting up an accessible reporting facility (available in the BIK community in EN; login first). Colleagues from SIC NL have given permission to share this with the network as a good practice example showing how the government, public sector and SIC can collaborate.

For further information, please contact Robbert at Offlimits.

Assessment platform submissions are now due for helplines and hotlines reporting on the second quarter of 2024 (April-June inclusive). Supporting documents, including reporting templates and guidelines are available in the BIK community (login first). A reminder that the Good practice guide on helpline data (March 2023) can be accessed in the BIK community here (login first). 

A reminder also that any submissions made via the Excel template should have the .xlsx file extension. 

Please note, the deadline for all submissions is the close of business on Friday, 12 July 2024. For further information, please contact Karl (helplines) or Abby (hotlines).

One of the BIK Phase 5 project activities is to carry out a European Union-wide evaluation of the BIK+ strategy every two years. The evaluation involves consultations with various stakeholders, including young people and children, parents and carers, teachers, and expert stakeholders. Ghent University – Research Group: Law & Technology, acting in a subcontractor capacity, is developing a base research methodology for consultations with young people and children (over 12 years of age). 

As indicated in previous Insafe Steering Committee exchanges, we intend to actively involve SICs in the BIK+ strategy evaluation going forward, given their instrumental position, relevant expertise and access to key national stakeholders. More information on this will follow soon.   

At this stage, EUN is launching a call for expressions of interest from expert organisations to organise consultations with children and young people younger than 12 years of age and from various vulnerable backgrounds. 

Please help us promote the open call by sharing it with any relevant expert organisations in your network. The open call is available here. 

In case of questions, please reach out to BIKevaluation@eun.org. 

An online meeting with WebGroup (which owns and operates the adult site XVideos) will take place on Wednesday, 3 July 2024 at 11:00 CEST. The meeting will be an opportunity to hear more about their safety and privacy tools, reporting routes, and how to flag problematic content. Join the meeting using this link. For further information, please contact Karl. 

There will be an online meeting with Yubo on Wednesday, 17 July 2024 at 11:00 CEST. This will provide an opportunity to hear about the latest developments on the platform including safety and privacy tools. Yubo is expanding into a number of EU countries and is keen to work closely with Insafe helplines; use this link to join the meeting. For further information, please contact Karl.

Thanks to those who participated in the recent virtual worlds panel discussion session; please see the follow-up feature in the June 2024 edition of the BIK bulletin. You can read past editions of the BIK bulletin here or subscribe to receive it directly in your mailbox.

The next meeting of the helpline early warning group will take place on Monday, 22 July 2024 at 11:00 CEST. If you need any further information, please contact Karl.

Many thanks to those people who attended the recent meeting on accessibility. You can find a report from the meeting along with the slides used and a link to a recording in the BIK community (login first). For any further information, please contact Karl.

Please note this item relates to wider INHOPE work not linked with BIK.

The seventh annual INHOPE Summit will take place in hybrid form on 8-9 October 2024. This year's summit will explore two critical topics: our society's understanding and awareness of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and the troubling trend of CSAM commercialisation. 

As the spread of CSAM online reaches unprecedented levels, reporting becomes increasingly vital. Yet, we must confront significant challenges in society's understanding of CSAM and address its economic ties. Join INHOPE as they tackle these pressing issues head-on.  

Read more in the article on the INHOPE website, or discover more on INHOPE events more generally.

As part of BIK youth consultation activities, we are looking for 5-10 young people to share their views on manipulative digital marketing practices that will feed into campaign materials for the full rollout of the AdWiseOnline campaign.    
 
The consultation is expected to cover:  

• Understanding what young people already know, and any gaps in knowledge.
• Analysing existing resources and assessing their usefulness.
• Gathering feedback on the preferred format of additional resources to better understand the topic.
• Exploring expectations regarding the support they would want to receive from their parents or teachers on this topic. 

We would like to meet with the group once during the summer (in the period between 1-16 August 2024) to introduce the initiative, explain what is expected, and gather immediate ideas on the above points. Following this initial meeting, young people (who are interested and available to continue collaboration) may be invited to contribute further during the August to October timeframe. This could include giving interviews, participating in podcasts, narrating videos, validating content, and co-designing resources. 
 
Thank you for issuing the call for interest at your national level; please contact Inna and Chiara by close of business on Friday, 19 July 2024, with any youth nominations.

Please note that although we have received great interest from youth so far (aged 17-19), we are especially keen to involve some younger youth voices in this consultation work. Any SIC support in reaching this target group would be much appreciated.

• Cyberbullying in the digital age (SIC RO)
• Entrepreneurial challenge for young people on a safe online world in Slovenia (SIC SI)
• How can parents and caregivers protect their children from the beauty craze on the internet? (SIC AT)
• Virtual worlds: Q&A session with Tünde Levy, European Commission
• Latest helpline trends: Quarter 1, 2024
• INHOPE EC-funded hotline activity: overview of Quarter 1, 2024

Please submit your public portal blog articles to the BIK content mailbox. 

Remember, article contributions to the BIK portal will count towards your SIC’s lump sum mechanism (LSM) criteria for 2024.

Helpline case studies

• A 10-year-old girl's image account was created to make fun of her (SIC ES)

We hope that you are enjoying exploring the BIK platform. Please note, a BIK user guide is available to download from the BIK community (login first). In case of questions or issues when using any aspect of the BIK platform, please contact us using the contact link in the top right navigation area or email support@betterinternetforkids.eu.

IMPORTANT – if you have new starters who need to register for the platform, please direct them to www.betterinternetforkids.eu/register, in parallel with sending an email to support@betterinternetforkids.eu so that we can verify them and provide further instructions.

Remember, contributions to the BIK community will count towards your SIC’s lump sum mechanism (LSM) criteria for 2024.

• Better Internet for Kids (BIK) public portal:
  www.betterinternetforkids.eu; #BIK; #BIKbulletin
• New BIK strategy (BIK+) on BIK portal:
  www.betterinternetforkids.eu/newbikstrategy; #BIKplus
• Safer Internet Forum (SIF) on BIK portal:
  www.betterinternetforkids.eu/sif;#SIF2023; #SIF2024, #SaferInternetForum
• BIK Policy Map on BIK portal:
  www.betterinternetforkids.eu/bikmap; #BIKPolicyMap
• Safer Internet Day (SID) minisite:
  www.saferinternetday.org; #SID2024; #SID2025; #SaferInternetDay
• Positive Online Content (POCC) minisite:
  www.positiveonlinecontentforkids.eu; #positivecontent; #PositiveOnlineContent; #POCC
• BIK Youth minisite:
  www.bikyouth.eu; #BIKyouth; #Pledge2Youth
• Child and youth consumer protection campaign (launched on Safer Internet Day 2024):
  www.betterinternetforkids.eu/adwiseonline; #AdWiseOnline
• Media literacy campaign (launched in March 2024):
  www.betterinternetforkids.eu/mediasmartonline; #MediaSmartOnline
• 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