Insafe Weekly Update

On 14 July 2025, the European Commission presented guidelines on the protection of minors under the Digital Services Act (DSA). They 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. 

The guidelines on the protection of minors ensure children enjoy high levels of privacy, safety and security on online platforms. This follows an inclusive and extensive consultation period, including with young people. Among other things, the guidelines provide recommendations to address addictive design, cyberbullying, harmful content, and unwanted contact from strangers. 

Read more about the guidelines on the protection of minors in the dedicated press release.  

On 14 July 2025, the European Commission 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. 

The prototype of the age verification app is user-friendly and protects privacy setting a ‘gold standard' in age assurance online. It will, for example, allow users to easily prove they are over 18 when accessing restricted adult content online, while remaining in full control of any other personal information, such as a user's exact age or identity. No one would be able to track, see or reconstruct what content individual users are consulting. The verification app will be tested and further customised in collaboration with Member States, online platforms and end-users. 

Read more about the blueprint for an age verification solution to help protect minors online in the factsheet, and the dedicated press release. 

The European Commission has launched 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 29 September 2029 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 (coming 29/7/2025). 

The European Commission, through the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT) Unit F4, has launched a “Study on monitoring app store ecosystems under the Digital Services Act under Framework Contract CNECT/2022/OP/0036”. The study is conducted by a consortium led by Wavestone in collaboration with Intellera.

The primary objective of this study is to support the Commission in fulfilling its monitoring and enforcement duties as the main authority responsible for ensuring compliance with Regulation (EU) 2022/2065. This regulation applies to very large online platforms and search engines (VLOPs and VLOSEs) concerning designated app stores.

To this end, the study will provide the EC with an analysis and mapping of the design, service, and business models of the ecosystems of app stores designated as VLOPs, including the functioning of their services and related systems, as well as the use made of these services. It will support the EC in better understanding the emerging trends in the distribution of illegal and harmful content on app stores, as well as the role played by recommender systems and advertising on selected platforms.

The survey takes approximately 40 minutes to complete and covers topics including:

• Perspectives on age assurance methods put in place by app stores and the role of third-party providers.
• Insights on age assurance implementation in the context of app stores.
• Observed experiences of parents and minors, including challenges and areas of concern.
• Feedback on common circumvention techniques.

SICs are invited to respond to the online survey and also share it with any relevant contacts and networks. The deadline to respond to the survey is tomorrow, Wednesday, 23 July 2025.

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

The next helpline early warning meeting will take place on Wednesday, 30 July 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. 

Notes from last meeting: Notes are now available in the BIK community.

Please contact Karl for any further information.

Thanks to those who joined the recent early warning meeting for awareness centres; notes are now available in the BIK community (login first).

The next meeting will take place on Monday, 11 August 2025 at 11:00 CEST; use this link to join.

Please contact Karl for any further information.

Many thanks to everyone who attended this meeting last week and huge thanks to Sue for giving such an interesting and useful presentation. 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 further information please contact Karl. 

We have developed a good practice guide on working with very young users. This was shared in the BIK bulletin last week and is 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.

On behalf of the European Commission, EUN is opening a call for expression of interest for BIK Youth Ambassadors to participate in a youth policy dialogue together with Glen Micallef, Commissioner for intergenerational fairness, youth, culture and sport, to inform the Action Plan against cyberbullying. 

The event will take place on 16 September 2025 from 10:30 to 12:00 in Brussels. The event will gather young people between the ages of 16 and 29. We are looking for six BIK Youth Ambassadors who are committed to reducing the risks of cyberbullying and who are at least 16 years old to join this dialogue. To ensure inclusive and equitable representation, we actively encourage nominations of young people from diverse backgrounds, including those from vulnerable groups.  

The travel costs of the young person (alongside one chaperone if needed) will be covered by the Commission. 

Please submit your nomination by contacting Chiara Antonelli and Carolina Fruscione by Friday, 25 July EOB.
Please note that submitting a nomination does not guarantee participation in the event. All nominations will undergo a careful selection process to ensure a balanced, inclusive, and representative group of participants.

European Digital Skills Awards The 2025 edition of the European Digital Skills Awards (EDSA), titled “Shine bright, be digital, go further”, is now open for applications. This year’s five categories cover key areas such as education, workforce upskilling, inclusion, cybersecurity, and gender equality in ICT. Applications are open until 31 July 2025, with finalists announced at an online event in October. Organisations are encouraged to apply and showcase their impact on digital skills in Europe. Read more and apply.  

Reports from online meetings for awareness centres and helplines are now available in the BIK community, including:

• VUĊI Toolkit online meeting July 2025
• Sony PlayStation online meeting July 2025
• Helpline case: Associating phone numbers with other people´s Telegram profiles (SIC ES)

Please remember to login first to access any BIK community content.

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.

• Protecting children online: a deep dive into technology, policy, and prevention against child online sexual exploitation (BIK)
• “CORNHUB ≠ REALITY”: BEE SECURE raises awareness about online porn representations (SIC LU)
• Family Day in a primary school in Portugal (SIC PT)
• How to deal with disinformation: tips from the Portuguese SIC (SIC PT)

Access the full BIK news article archive here.

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

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