Insafe Weekly Update

The latest helpline quarterly report, based on data from Q4 (October-December 2023), has now been published and is available from the BIK community (login first). It also contains comparisons between 2022 and 2023. Please contact Karl if you have any questions or need any further information.

The next Insafe/INHOPE joint training meeting will take place on Wednesday 17 and Thursday 18 April 2024 in Warsaw, Poland. The meeting will start at 13:00 on Wednesday 17 April and will finish at 17:00 on Thursday 18 April. There will be some optional activities taking place on the morning of Wednesday – a Media Literacy in the Classroom session and also a visit to the Polish helpline. The Insafe Steering Committee meeting will take place on the morning of Friday, 19 April 2024.

The meeting will be held at the Airport Hotel Okęcie. A special room rate is available; access this by going to the hotel website, click book a room, then in the upper right corner click enter code. The code to use is EUN. 

Register here for the training meeting (the link includes information on the draft agenda, as well as the networking dinner and other side events). Please register before the close of business on Thursday, 29 February 2024. For any questions or further information on any aspect of the training meeting, please contact Karl. 

As usual, there will be a resource competition taking place as part of the upcoming training meeting. As this is a joint Insafe/INHOPE training meeting, all EC co-funded SICs and INHOPE hotlines are welcome to take part in the competition with the chance of winning €5,000 which must be used to make the resource accessible to the wider network. Typically, the funds would be used for translation and/or adaptation.   

The resource could be a video, brochure, book, research report, learning materials – anything that would be of interest and use to the wider network. The focus of this edition of the resource competition will be on children and young people aged 12 to 18. SICs and hotlines are invited to submit any resource which targets or is aimed at this particular group.   

Those wishing to take part should submit an entry using this short online form. Please remember that each country can only submit one resource. If you are unsure if a particular resource will fit the requirements, please contact Karl or Annarita to discuss.  

Please find below an outline of the upcoming deadlines related to the resource competition:

The next meeting of the helpline early warning group will take place on Wednesday, 6 March 2024 at 14:00 CET. Use this link to join the meeting; for further information, please contact Karl.

Please note, this item relates to INHOPE work delivered under the BIK Phase 5 project.

On Thursday, 7 March 2024, INHOPE is hosting its second Expert Insights Webinar of 2024. AI-generated CSAM (child sexual abuse material) is an emerging form of abuse material that can be generated at the push of a button. It poses a new threat to online child safety, law enforcement agencies (LEAs), and hotlines all over the world. Join this webinar for an in-depth overview of the latest insights from the recent Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) report on AI abuse. Through case studies, Alex from IWF will shed light on analytical findings drawn from discussions between AI CSAM perpetrators on the dark web. Find out more and register via the INHOPE website. 

The European Digital and Media Literacy Conference is taking place this week, from Tuesday, 27 February 2024 to Friday, 1 March 2024 in Brussels. It puts the many faces of digital and media literacy in the European spotlight during the Belgian EU presidency. The conference is focused on showcasing and exchanging initiatives, tools, projects and practices that can be integrated into your own work or policy. More information is available from www.medialiteracymatters.eu. In case of questions, please contact Andy Demeulenaere (Coordinator at Mediawijs).

Ahead of the upcoming EU elections, Google is organising an onsite event entitled Fighting misinformation online taking place in Brussels on Thursday, 21 March 2024 from 9:00 to 16:00 CET. The opportunity is for young people between 16-19 years of age. Please also note that a prior engagement with BIK Youth (through the BIK Youth panel or SIF YAG) is required to be selected for participation. The costs associated with participation at this event (travel and accommodation) for the young people, as well as their chaperone in case they are minors, will be covered by the organiser. More information and a sign-up form can be found here. In case of questions, please contact Sabrina or Chiara. 

A kind reminder that SICs are requested to proceed with compiling their Safer Internet Day 2024 results by completing the customary SID reporting template (including a blog article). The deadline for submissions is COB on Tuesday, 5 March 2024.

Submissions and queries should be directed to saferinternetday@betterinternetforkids.eu.

A new AdWiseOnline campaign launched on Safer Internet Day 2024 as part of a range of new initiatives within the current BIK Phase 5 project. Its key aim is to raise children's and young people's awareness of digital marketing practices and empower them with knowledge about their economic rights. Informed by research, the campaign will focus on a range of (potentially problematic) practices such as influencer and in-game marketing. A research report - Manipulative digital marketing practices targeting children and young people - was published as part of the launch activities, and awareness raising will continue throughout March and April 2024 across various BIK communication channels.

Discover more about the initiative on the BIK portal and in a launch article here.

Please note, this first edition of the campaign is an internal pilot being rolled out in cooperation with a subset of Safer Internet Centres and European Consumer Centres (ECCs) in collaboration with a campaign Task Force. Following evaluation, it will be scaled for full roll-out in 2025, but SICs are already invited to use and disseminate the campaign's resources and messages. 

In case of any questions about the AdWiseOnline campaign, please contact Inna.

A new BIK MOOC (massive open online course) will launch on Monday, 11 March 2024 for a duration of approximately 4 weeks. This course will provide background information and understanding of key initiatives that are shaping the digital experiences of children and young people. It will also explore how teachers and schools can help to protect and promote children's rights in a digital world, how education can empower children and young people with the necessary skills and competences for the Digital Decade, and methods to encourage all youth to actively participate in shaping a better and safer internet.

The course is targeted at primary and secondary school teachers of any subject. Other educational professionals and stakeholders, such as heads of schools, school support staff, and policymakers with an interest in this topic are also welcome to join.

Find out more and enrol on the European Schoolnet Academy.

Safer Internet Centres are kindly asked to reshare the MOOC details through their own channels.

You may recall that, towards the end of last year, we issued a call for members for a new BIK Teacher Voice Panel to give input on ideas, initiatives and resources, so that we can better meet the needs of this stakeholder group. Panel members may also be called on periodically to provide representation at the BIK Advisory Board, the annual Safer Internet Forum (SIF), project focus groups and task forces (on topics such as youth consumer protection and age verification), and high-level consultations on online safety matters.

Last week, we organised a high-level focus group on the Digital Services Act (DSA) in schools on behalf of the EC as part of Safer Internet Day celebrations. The first BIK Teacher Voice panellists participated, giving excellent insights into the current opportunities and challenges in education. As we have more of these opportunities coming up, we are keen to build a wide and diverse teacher base to call upon. As such, Safer Internet Centres are kindly asked to reshare the call through their own channels.

Those interested in applying to join the panel should complete a short online form, including a brief motivation statement and a summary of relevant experience. Please note, to participate in this call, teachers and educators should:

• Be actively teaching in an EU country.
• Be actively teaching children and young people in pre-school, primary or secondary education (until the age of 18 years old).
• Have an awareness of online safety and media literacy issues.
• Be able to express ideas and opinions clearly in English in both written and spoken form.

Further information on the BIK Teacher Voice Panel is available here, where online applications can also be made.

The next edition of the BIK bulletin will be published at the end of March with a focus on the global celebration of Safer Internet Day (SID) 2024, the latest developments with the Digital Services Act (DSA), and two new campaigns: AdWiseOnline - focusing on consumer and youth protection (see also above), and MediaSmartOnline - focusing on media literacy. As always, we also invite Safer Internet Centres (and their partners) to contribute with general articles on news, resources or events. The content deadline is COB on Monday, 11 March 2024 (or sooner if possible) and 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. The BIK team reserves the right to edit contributions for house style etc., but we try to keep this to a minimum. See the content contribution guidelines here.

• "Growing up in the digital world": successful Safer Internet symposium (SIC AT)
• New study about beauty ideals on the internet (SIC AT)
• The Digital Youth Panel: honesty, confidentiality and exchanging experiences among young people (SIC DK)
• Navigating safely: programme review 2023 (SIC PT)

Remember to submit your public portal blog articles to the BIK content mailbox; they count towards your SIC’s lump sum mechanism (LSM) criteria.

Helpline case studies

• They stole her phone and shared photos on adult websites (SIC ES)

Helpline community of practice

• Helpline quarterly report - October-December 2023

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.

• 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):
  #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