Insafe Weekly Update

The guidelines aim to support platforms accessible by minors in ensuring a high level of privacy, safety, and security for children, as required by DSA, outlining a non-exhaustive list of measures that all platforms, with the exception of micro and small enterprises, can implement to protect minors, using a default approach that is guided by privacy by design.

The guidelines adopt the same risk-based approach that underpins the DSA, recognising that different platforms pose varying levels of risks to minors. This ensures that platforms can tailor their measures to their specific services, avoiding undue restrictions on children’s rights to participation, information, and freedom of expression.

The draft guidelines are open for final public feedback until Tuesday, 10 June 2025. The Commission is seeking contributions from all stakeholders, including children, parents and guardians, national authorities, online platform providers, and experts. The publication of the guidelines is expected by the summer of 2025.

SICs are encouraged to also share this information with their own contacts and networks.

See also the Capacity building entry below for details of an online network meeting, on Friday this week, to share thoughts and ideas.

Last week, HaDEA organised a virtual info session on the call DIGITAL-2025-BESTUSE-08: Accelerating the Best Use of Technologies, launched under the Digital Europe Work Programme 2025-2027. Participants had the opportunity to learn all about the calls, the application process, and join Q&A sessions. 

The info session covered the following two topics: 

• DIGITAL-2025-BESTUSE-08-NETWORKSICs: Network of Safer Internet Centres
  The objective of the topic is to continue to support national Safer Internet Centres (SICs), to provide online safety information, educational resources, public awareness tools and counselling and reporting services through dedicated helplines and hotlines for young people, teachers/educators, and parents/carers.
  Budget: € 42 million.
• DIGITAL-2025-BESTUSE-08-FACTCHECKERS: European Network of Factcheckers
  The objective of the topic is to support the growth of a European Network of Factcheckers, which will deepen the language coverage and operational capacity of fact-checking in Europe.
  Budget: €5 million.

The presentations from the info session are now available on the HaDEA website.

The submission of applications for this call opened on Tuesday, 15 April 2025 and will close on Tuesday, 2 September 2025 (17:00:00 CEST).

The May 2025 edition of the Publications Office of the European Union newsletter places a spotlight on European youth policy - read it in full here.

The Publications Office of the European Union is the official provider of publishing services to all EU institutions, bodies and agencies. As such, it is the central point of access to EU law, publications, data, research results, procurement notices, and other official information. The Publications Office, therefore, plays a central role in informing the public about what the EU does and means for them, and in unlocking the power of data.

In the framework of the new BIK Phase 6 project, we are continuing to convene a number of working groups and invite members of the network to sign up to participate. We are aiming for a broad representation from across the network in each WG in terms of geographic spread and areas of work represented (i.e. awareness, helpline or youth participation). Please indicate which group(s) you would like to be part of in the online survey by COB on Wednesday, 11 June 2025. We will confirm membership once we have reviewed all responses to ensure that we have the best representation across all groups.
 
Available working groups are as follows; further information on the scope of each working group is included in the online survey:

• Governance Working Group (GWG)
• Knowledge Management Working Group (KMWG)
• Helpline Working Group (HLWG)
• Assessment Working Group (AWG)
• Youth Participation Working Group (YPWG)
• Safer Internet Day Working Group (SID WG)

Please note: if you are an existing WG member and would be happy to remain as such, please reconfirm this via the survey also.
In case of questions on the process, please contact Karl in the first instance

The European Commission has launched a consultation on the guidelines on the protection of minors online under the Digital Services Act (see Governance section above). We know that some SICs are planning to respond to the consultation, which closes on 10 June 2025.  

Many thanks to everyone who attended this meeting last Friday and particular thanks to Katie and Carolina for their input and presentations. You can find the meeting report along with a link to the recording in the BIK community (login first). For any further information please contact Karl.  

Many thanks to everyone who attended the early warning meeting for awareness centres last week. You can find a report from the meeting along with a link to the recording in the BIK community (login first). If you need any further information, please contact Karl.

The next early warning meeting for awareness centres will take place on Monday, 30 June 2025, at 11:00 CEST; use this link to join the meeting. Please contact Karl for any further information.

The next helpline early warning meeting will be held on Wednesday, 18 June 2025 at 11:00 CEST; join the meeting using this link. Please contact Karl for any further information.

There will be an online meeting with Apple on Tuesday, 3 June 2025 at 16:30 CEST. This will be an opportunity to hear some updates from the Apple team about trust and safety issues. Use this link to join the meeting. For any further information, please contact Karl.

Please note, this item relates to wider INHOPE work not linked with the BIK Phase 6 project, and is provided here for information purposes only

The full schedule for INHOPE’s Expert Insights 2025 series is now available. This webinar series, supported by INHOPE’s long-time partner Resolver Trust & Safety, runs from April to July with four expert-led sessions for professionals tackling online child protection. The first three webinars have already taken place, but one more is coming up on Tuesday, 8 July 2025, this session will explore the role of financial intelligence in detecting, investigating, and preventing child exploitation, featuring experts from CashApp.

If you work in trust and safety, policy, law enforcement, or child protection, you won’t want to miss this series.

Save these dates and register for the upcoming webinar on the INHOPE website.

We are delighted to open the call for youth participation in this year's Safer Internet Forum, taking place in Brussels, Belgium in December 2025.

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 new BIK project phase, 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.
• 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, 20 June 2025.
For further information, please contact Sabrina or Chiara

The next edition of the BIK bulletin will be published at the end of June 2025, with news on the recently published BIK+ strategy evaluation and Policy monitor report. 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 the close of business on Wednesday, 18 June 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, we cannot accept AI-generated images). The BIK team reserves the right to edit contributions for house style etc., but we try to keep this to a minimum.

Access the full BIK news article archive here.

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

Recently uploaded:

• BIK Platform user guides
• Article 28 guidelines consultation - online meetings (notes and recordings)

Various reports from online meetings for awareness centres and helplines are now available in the BIK community (login first).

Need help with the BIK platform?
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 in the first instance, and we will 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, #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