Brussels, 08/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - Some 65 organisations from thirty countries including Russia, Iceland, Australia and Singapore, celebrated “Safer Internet Day” on 8 February. This event is part of a world awareness campaign to promote safer use of the Internet, particularly among young people, and was organised by the European network INSAFE, which is coordinated by European Schoolnet and co-funded by the European Commission. Among the activities to take place throughout the day are conference, the launch of school training programmes on use of the Internet, radio and television media releases and the launch of several websites. The European Safer Internet programme has been going since 1999 with a total budget of 38.3 million EUR. 99 projects of an average duration of 2 years have been, or will be, co-funded by the EU. Among these projects are: 21 telephone help lines to report illegal content (and another 4 being set up), 16 information centres to raise awareness of safer Internet use (and a further 7 being set up), an applied research project covering 9 countries, on media education, a quality label system for websites, two pilot projects on self-regulation (one to extend the classification of content to online games and the other to fight unsolicited mail), and performance ratings for filtering software further to a call for tenders to be closed on 28 February.
Safer Internet Plus, which will take up where the current programme leaves off, will be officially launched in March. This four-year programme (2005-2008) with a budget of 45 million EUR will make tools available to parents and teachers to fight the undesirable side of the Internet, to help fight racism and unsolicited messages (“spam”). “Parents overestimate their level of knowledge about how to protect their children online. More than 60% (…) do not think their children know what to do if a situation on the Internet makes them uncomfortable”, warns Viviane Reding, Commissioner for the Information Society and the Media. “We are committed to empowering future generations of Europeans to use information and communication technology safely, ethically and effectively”, she promises.