Insafe Weekly Update

As we speed towards the launch of the new BIK platform in early October 2024, we would like to invite you to review and update your Safer Internet Centre (SIC) profile page. Updates should be submitted via EUSurvey here; further information is provided in the form.  
 
For this round of updates we are also requesting some additional information which has not been routinely provided in SIC profiles previously - notably opening hours and contact methods for all public-facing services, and information on how young people can get involved in the SIC's activities. Please note, this information is mandatory - please ensure you complete all of the new fields as fully as possible. 
 
Please submit updates via EUSurvey by close of business on Friday, 27 September 2024. Should you have any questions, please contact the BIK content mailbox in the first instance.  

The European Commission has launched a call for evidence, responses to which will feed into the guidelines the Commission is preparing under Art.28(4) of the DSA on the protection of minors. Once adopted, these guidelines will help online platforms apply the requirement to put in place appropriate measures to ensure a high-level of privacy safety and security for minors online.  

The call seeks feedback on the proposed scope and approach of the guidelines, as well as on good practices and recommendations related to mitigation measures to the risks that minors can encounter online. The Commission is inviting all stakeholders to take part in the call for evidence, including by providing supporting scientific reports and research. 

Online platforms should ensure that the rights and best interests of children are a central consideration when designing their services. Platforms should adopt a risk-based approach, regularly carry out impact assessments, and implement mitigation measures for any potential risks to minors stemming from their services. The work of the Working Group on the Protection of Minors under the Board will also feed into the guidelines. 

The call is available in all EU official languages; a news item can be found here.  

Next steps:  

• Contributions are welcome to the call for evidence until Monday, 30 September 2024 (midnight Brussels time). 
• After the close of the call, the Commission will use input to draft the guidelines. 
• The Commission will conduct a public consultation on the draft guidelines. 
• Consultation of the Board. 
• Adoption of the guidelines is planned for before the summer of 2025. 

Safer Internet Centres are encouraged to contribute to the call for evidence. Please feel free to share this information with your own relevant contacts and networks also.

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.  

In addition to participation from Safer Internet Centres as facilitators of consultations with children and young people in the first BIK+ strategy evaluation (see above), we are keen to engage with parents, caregivers, teachers, and educators. All Safer Internet Centres are invited to disseminate the open calls:  

• Call for parents and caregivers
• Call for teachers and educators 

The consultation process with parents and teachers is anticipated to be as follows: 

• Consultation sessions will be organised online at different times between Monday, 23 September and Friday, 25 October 2024 (exact dates and times will be shared closer to the date via email). 
• The session duration will be 1 – 1.5 hours (exact duration to be confirmed closer to the date via email). 
• The deadline for submitting additional written feedback after the consultation session (optional) is Thursday, 31 October 2024, at 18.00 CET. 
• The final evaluation report will be published in February 2025.

In order to take part in the consultation, participants are invited to complete an online registration form as follows:  

• Parents and caregivers are invited to visit this link to express their interest in participating.
• Teachers and educators are invited to visit this link to express their interest in participating.

All expressions of interest should be received by next Sunday, 15 September 2024.

We will be publishing posts on our social media platforms (Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn) in the coming days to promote this activity. Safer Internet Centres are kindly encouraged to reshare the posts or find other ways to share the call information with their national communities, contacts and networks.

If you have questions, please contact BIKevaluation@eun.org.

Thanks to those who attended the recent helpline early warning meeting. Access a report from the meeting and link to the recording in the BIK community (login first). For any further information, please contact Karl.

An online meeting with TikTok will take place on Tuesday, 1 October 2024 at 12:00 CEST. It will provide an opportunity to hear about latest developments in safety and privacy on the platform, as well as to ask any questions; use this link to join the meeting. For further information, please contact Karl.  For further information, please contact Karl.

Save the Children Finland has been leading a two-year EU-funded project: Child Sexual Abuse Prevention and Education (CSAPE). It aims to prevent child sexual abuse through sexual education and early support to young people who have a sexual interest towards younger children. The project consortium comprises partners from Greece, Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, and Iceland.

The project is organising a hybrid seminar, From Awareness to Action—Tackling Child Sexual Abuse in Europe through Prevention and Collaboration, in Brussels on Wednesday, 30 October 2024, from 9.30 to 16.00 CET. In the seminar, you will hear interesting keynote speeches and project results. SICs are welcome to attend either on-site in Brussels or online; register for the event here.

The CSAPE project has also produced several materials that are available via Save the Children Finland's website. Most of the materials are in six languages: English, Finnish, Greek, Albanian, Icelandic, and Bosnian. Here you will find a few of the materials (in English): 

• Sexual education material for professionals to use with 5-11-year-old children: Evidence-based sexual education – training package and annexes 
• LISTEN AND SUPPORT: Guide for parents and guardians about children’s sexual education (pdf) 
• Brochure for young people: What if your sexual thoughts are directed at children much younger than you? (pdf)
• Brochure for professionals: How to support a young person with child sexual thoughts (pdf) 

For further information, please contact Karl.

It's time to get #Back2School! 

The fourth webinar of the BIK Teacher corner webinar series is entirely dedicated to supporting teachers and educators at the start of a new school year. Devices and other digital technologies have entered the classroom to stay, so what do teachers and educators need to know to ensure that their pupils can have a safe, digital start to the new school year?  

Speaker: Gareth Cort. 

SAVE THE DATE for this Thursday, 12 September 2024, 17:00 CEST. Registration is now open, and the network is encouraged to participate and/or further disseminate this webinar. 

The BIK Teacher corner is a section of the BIK portal entirely dedicated to teachers, educators and other adults who work with children and young people. It is your ‘one-stop shop’ for learning and teaching about digital citizenship and online safety, and your go-to place for free information, advice and suggested resources to empower you to educate and support youth to safely and positively navigate their digital world, such as learning modules and deep dive articles. You can also watch the recordings of previous webinars here. 

The European Parents' Association (EPA) have asked us to share the following information:

We are pleased to invite you to the HERMMES conference on media education that is taking place on Saturday, 21 September 2024 in Rosmalen in the Netherlands. 

The HERMMES project brings together 12 partners who are dedicated and skilled in designing a holistic education approach towards media maturity and digital literacy for children and young people. The HERMMES approach brings together schools, teachers, and parents to look at the learning needs of students of different ages, from 0 to 18.

EPA has been a project partner throughout the project, and we are convinced that it is a great contribution to every parent and teaching staff member. The quality of the consortium work is outstanding, and we believe this will be an inspiring conference! See here for information on the conference; registration is available here.

Please feel free to circulate this invitation to your own networks of relevant. 

A kind reminder that SIC article publications are suspended while we prepare for the new BIK platform; please contact the BIK content mailbox in case of any queries.

Please remember that uploads to the BIK community are currently suspended while we prepare for the new platform launch. If you have questions, please contact the BIK content mailbox.

If you have questions or issues using any aspect of the BIK platform or current registration processes, please use the contact link in the top right navigation area or email support@betterinternetforkids.eu.

• 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