As many of you know, there was a session at the recent joint training meeting which provided an opportunity for discussion to inform the upcoming EC action plan against cyberbullying. We have prepared a short template for each country to help capture the key information about the definition of cyberbullying that is currently used, any significant developments around cyberbullying, and the key priorities that you think need to be addressed in fighting cyberbullying at both the national and EU levels. Where possible, we have tried to pre-populate these templates with information that we already have but would be very grateful if you would be able to complete these, either by working on the online document or by returning them to Karl, by close of business on Friday, 4 April 2025.

Many thanks in advance for your support with this; please do get in touch if you have any questions or need any further information. 

EUN is currently in the process of supporting the European Commission in gathering feedback from children and young people on the Draft Guidelines for Article 28 of the DSA. While some SICs have already expressed an interest in conducting consultations with children and young people at the national level, EUN will complement the consultation series with a pan-European youth consultation. Hence, we are looking for 15 young people between the ages of 14 and 18 (ideally, with a preference for 16 to 18 years, given the nature of the consultation exercise). The consultation will take place online on Monday, 14 April 2025, from 18:00-19:30 CEST. 

To ensure a diverse group in terms of gender, age and geography, we invite each SIC to put forward a maximum of two nominees per country. Once the call for participation has been closed, we will inform SICs of the final group composition and selected youth. Please note, as this consultation concerns aspects related to the DSA, the nominated youth should be from EU Member States only.

If you are interested, please email the details of your proposed youth candidates to Chiara and Sabrina by the close of business on Monday, 31 March 2025.

Assessment platform submissions are now due for helplines and hotlines (login first) reporting on the first quarter of 2025 (January - March inclusive). The deadline for both helpline and hotline submissions is the close of business on Friday, 11 April 2025.

The Excel template for helplines is now available in the new BIK community (login first). A reminder, also, that the Good practice guide on helpline data (March 2023) can also be accessed in the BIK community here (login first). For further information, contact Karl (helplines).

The Excel template for hotlines is now available in the new BIK community (login first). Please contact Abby (INHOPE) for any queries regarding hotline submissions.

Please remember that these submissions must be made using the assessment platform in the new BIK community. In case of issues accessing, or if you need to assign reporting permissions to new/different staff members, please contact the BIK support mailbox.

As discussed at the Insafe Steering Committee meeting on Friday, the Insafe Coordinator is currently preparing a good practice guide on how SICs can help raise awareness among educators, children and young people about the Digital Services Act (DSA). The guide will cover a set of key education and awareness-raising messages on the DSA, examples of awareness-raising activities carried out at the EU level, and a catalogue of examples of awareness-raising activities by SICs at the national level.

We would ask all SICs to share any information about the activities in which they are engaged so that this can be included in the guide. Please share an overview of any activities that your SIC has done with Karl by the close of business on Friday, 4 April 2025. 

The next online meeting for youth coordinators will take place this Thursday, 27 March 2025 at 11.00 CET. During this meeting, Paraskevi Fragopoulou and Marieva Karkanaki from the Greek Safer Internet Centre will present the implementation of the DSA in Greece and the new government initiatives in this regard. Access the meeting using this link; for further information, please contact Eray.

It was great to see so many of you at the Insafe-INHOPE joint training meeting in Amsterdam last week. Huge thanks to our colleagues from the Dutch Safer Internet Centre for being such fantastic hosts, thanks to all of our speakers and panellists, and thanks to all of you for contributing to the various sessions and discussions. We hope you found it useful.

As usual, we will be sharing presentations from the meeting in the BIK community (login first), and many are already available. We would be very grateful if you could take a couple of minutes to complete the short evaluation survey and share your feedback about the meeting and suggestions for future events. This really does make a difference when we are planning the next meetings: access the survey here.

If you need any further information or have any questions, then please contact Karl.

The next early warning meeting for awareness centres will take place Wednesday, 2 April 2025 at 14:00 CEST; use this link to join the meeting. All colleagues are welcome regardless of whether you have anything to share. 

For further information on any aspect of awareness early warning meetings, please contact Karl.

There will be an online meeting for helplines on Thursday, 3 April 2025 at 09:00 CEST. The meeting will hear from Elliot Taylor, the CEO of Throughline. Throughline is used by many social media platforms (e.g., Discord) and other platforms and apps,and provides a direct link to a helpline or support service which is local to a user who needs help. Some Insafe helplines are already included in their directory, but others are not, and we thought it would be useful to provide an opportunity for helplines to hear more about the service and how it works so that they could potentially be included. You can use this link to join the meeting. Please contact Karl if you need further information or if you have any questions.

An online meeting with Meta will take place on Wednesday, 9 April 2025 at 11:00 CEST. It will provide an opportunity to hear about some of the latest tools for privacy and security which have been launched, as well as a chance for questions and discussion. Use this link to join the meeting. If you need any further information, please contact Karl.

The next early warning meeting for helplines will take place on Friday, 2 May 2025 at 11:00 CEST; join the meeting using this link. For further information on any aspect of the helpline early warning meetings, please contact Karl.

Please note, this item relates to wider INHOPE work not linked with the BIK Phase 5 project, and is provided here for information purposes only

The INHOPE Expert Insights webinar series is back and kicking off on Thursday, 3 April 2025, with an exclusive insight into the INHOPE Annual Report 2024.

What is happening in child online safety? 2024 marked 25 years of INHOPE working towards a digital world free from child sexual abuse material (CSAM). But it was also a year of significant challenges, with hotlines witnessing an unprecedented rise in CSAM records. The INHOPE Annual Report 2024 provides insights from 55 hotlines worldwide, revealing the scale of this alarming surge and our ongoing efforts to combat it.

Join Kalina Zografska and Grete Raidma for an exclusive first look at the 2024 data and trends and discover how INHOPE is working to create a safer digital world for all. Read more and register to attend via the INHOPE website.

The next edition of the BIK bulletin will be published next Monday, 31 March 2025, with news on the recently published BIK+ strategy evaluation and a round-up of Safer Internet Day actions. 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 today - Monday, 24 March 2025. All contributions or queries should be addressed to content@betterinternetforkids.eu.

Articles
Recently published articles include:

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

A number of presentations and materials from the Insafe-INHOPE joint training meeting are now available to download from 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