Galexia

An Overview of International Cyber-Security Awareness Raising and Educational Initiatives (2011)

International campaigns – Campaign 2 – EU Safer Internet Program

First launched in 1999, the ‘Safer Internet Program’ is designed to educate the European community about Internet security, with an emphasis on risks for young people. ‘Young people, parents, carers and teachers must be informed of the potential risks that youngsters may encounter online. Fighting illegal and harmful content and conduct online should be a priority.’

The main objectives are ‘to promote the safer use of the Internet and other communication technologies, particularly for children and young people, to educate users, particularly children, parents, carers, teachers and educators in this regard and to fight against illegal content and harmful conduct online.’

  

Item

Notes

Campaign Name:

EU ‘Safer Internet Program’

Organisation:

Europe’s Information Society

Main URL:

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sip/index_en.htm

Dates:

2009 – 2013

Costs:

No details available

Topics covered:

– Illegal content

– Harmful conduct (e.g. grooming and bullying)

– Promoting a safer environment

– Raising awareness

Target Audience:

Young people and children

Methodology:

– Community consultation on internet security issues

– Funds Safe Internet Centres in the EU member nations, some run hotlines where users can find out more about internet security

– Pan-European content filtering and content labelling

Among others, projects such as:

– ‘CIRCAMP’, encouraging international law enforcement cooperation

– ‘MAPAP’ a project that measures and analyses the peer to peer activity against paedophile content

– ‘SIP – BENCH’ study whose objective was to assess filtering software and services currently available in order to provide guidance to parents and educators.

Evaluation:

Not found

Additional Information:

The most recent topics for community consultation are:

– Age verification, cross media rating and social networking (2008)

– Online technologies for children (2007)

– Child safety and mobile phone services (2006)

Sources:

1. ‘Safer Internet Program: the main framework for European policy’ Europe’s Information Society <http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sip/policy/programme/index_en.htm> (accessed 24 June 2010).

2. ‘Empowering and protecting children online’ European Commission Information Society and Media <http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/doc/factsheets/018-safer-internet.pdf> (accessed 24 June 2010).