9 February marks European Safer Internet Day, an initiative supported by the European Commission's Safer Internet Programme and organised by the Insafe network, with events taking place in over 60 countries around the world.
On this day, the European Commission praised the actions carried out by the 20 companies which in 2009 signed the Safer Social Networking Principles, but considered that more needs to be done to protect children online. In fact, according to a study released on 9th February, 50% of European teenagers give out personal information on the web which can remain online forever and can be seen by anybody. Meanwhile the Commission reports that ''less than half of social networking companies (40%) make profiles of under-18 users visible only to their friends by default and only one third replied to user reports asking for help''.
In Portugal, the Safer Internet Programme is the responsibility of a consortium coordinated by UMIC – The Knowledge Society Agency, involving the Ministry of Education’s General-Directorate for Innovation and Curricular Development, FCCN - Foundation for National Scientific Computing and Microsoft Portugal. A number of initiatives have been prepared to promote safer Internet use, with particular focus on primary and secondary schools, and places with public and free Internet access.
Further information:
- European Commission calls on social networking companies to improve child safety policies http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/144&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
- Viviane Reding - ''Think before you post! How to make social networking sites safer for children and teenagers?'' http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/10/22&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
- Safer Internet Programme http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sip/index_en.htm
- Implementation of the Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/social_networking/eu_action/implementation_princip/index_en.htm
- European Commission's website on Social Networking http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/social_networking/index_en.htm
