Brussels, 26/04/2004 (Agence Europe) - During their informal meeting in Dundalk last Thursday (see EUROPE of 20 April, p.15, and of 30 March, p.18), the Telecommunications Ministers of the EU agreed to step up their efforts to make the Internet a safer place for children. They agreed, amongst other things, to provide the means to achieve this goal by supporting the development of new filtering technologies, safety programmes and the expansion of whistleblower hotlines.
In other words, Ministers will give the green light to the "Safer Internet Plus" programme of the European Commission at the Telecoms Council of 11 and 12 June. With a budget of 50 million EUR, this programme will teach parents and teachers to use tools to make the Internet safer. According to a recent survey, almost half of all young people in northern Europe who chat on the Internet say that someone has used it to ask to meet them. Irish Communications Minister Dermot Ahern, who chaired the Dundalk conference, spoke of the "intrinsic dangers" of the Internet and said: "As Ministers, we intend tackling these issues and the Commission's safety blueprint provides us with a raft of new measures". The European Commissioner in charge of the dossier, Erkki Liikanen, said that "Safer Internet Plus" would build upon existing programmes, but "also takes account of new means of communication, such as videos, and new issues such as spam". Mr Liikanen also stated his intentions of involving the accession countries, to work with end uses (parents, teachers and children) and get public, private and voluntary sectors involved to organise campaigns to fight for safety. The main areas for action are: -fighting illegal content; - tackling unwanted or harmful content (such as spam); - promoting a secure environment; and campaigns to raise awareness of these issues. Aside from the development of hotlines, which the public can use to report dangerous Internet sites, the programme will propose funding for technological measures to limit the spread of unwanted or dangerous content, or to assess the efficiency of existing filtering technologies. Funding will also be made available to support the development of efficient filtering technologies and to promote exchanges of information and best practice designed to apply effective anti-spam measures.