Session
Portuguese Safer Internet Centre / Portuguese National Cybersecurity Centre
• Sofia Rasgado – Portuguese Safer Internet Centre | Portuguese National Cybersecurity Centre – Government – Western Europe & others – onsite
• Niels Van Paemel – Child Focus - Civil Society - Western Europe & others – onsite
• Anna Rywczyńska – NASK - Technical Community - Eastern Europe - onsite
• Julia Piechna – NASK - Technical Community - Eastern Europe – onsite
• Boris Radanovic – SWGFL – NGO - Western Europe – onsite
• Deborah Vassallo - FSWS-APPOGG - Civil Society - Western Europe & others - onsite
• Sabrina Vorbau – Insafe / European SchoolNet - Civil Society - Western Europe & others - onsite
Sofia Rasgado – Portuguese Safer Internet Centre | Portuguese National Cybersecurity Centre – Government – Western Europe & others – onsite
Niels Van Paemel – Child Focus - Civil Society - Western Europe & others – onsite
Anna Rywczyńska – NASK - Technical Community - Eastern Europe - onsite
Boris Radanovic – SWGFL – NGO - Western Europe – onsite
Onsite Moderator - Sabrina Vorbau – Insafe / European SchoolNet - Civil Society - Western Europe & others - onsite
Julia Piechna – NASK - Technical Community - Eastern Europe – onsite
Deborah Vassallo - FSWS-APPOGG - Civil Society - Western Europe & others – onsite
3. Good Health and Well-Being
4. Quality Education
5. Gender Equality
17. Partnerships for the Goals
Targets: As outlined in the session description this Day 0 event will focus on the importance of empowering youth by advocating for their online rights to be able to search for help, advice and psychological support when need it. During the session, experts from European Safer Internet Centres will present their national best practices on the topic. Considering young people as experts themselves, the session will also ensure that the voices of young people are listen to and taking into consideration when developing resources and policy on child online safety and protection. Hence, this proposal is contributing directly to four SDGs, as indicated above, and listed here below again, while surely other SDGs may be respected indirectly as well.
3 – Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages;
4 – Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education to promote opportunities for all;
5 – Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls;
17 - Partnership among the organizations that are under the EU co-funded Safer Internet Centres, helplines and Industry.
Roundtable
Presentations, including voices of youth, followed by discussions and Q/A
The new European strategy for a Better Internet for Kids (BIK+ Strategy), adopted by the European Commission in May 2022, aims to provide a delicate balance between digital participation, empowerment, and protection of children in the digital environment.
BIK+ Strategy comes as an adaptation to the 2012 BIK Strategy, following a decade where technological developments exceeded any expectation. The new strategy, adopted after a long consultation process, aims to place children at the forefront of developments/ decisions that will be adopted by key stakeholders and the industry that concern the digital environment in the years to come. Children, as the digital citizens of the future, and being raised in a digital environment deserve to have a saying to what concerns the developments, protective measures, and their rights, and to shape the world they will live in.
Based on the above critical and thoughtful elements, the BIK+ Strategy places emphasis to the following three pillars:
1. Provide children with a secure digital environment that safeguards them from harmful and illegal online content, conduct, contact, and risks, while also enhancing their well-being by ensuring age-appropriate content and respecting their best interests.
2. Empower all children, including those in vulnerable situations, with the skills and competencies required to make sound decisions and express themselves safely and responsibly in the online environment.
3. Encourage active participation by respecting children's opinions and incorporating more child-led activities in the digital environment to promote innovative and creative safe digital experiences.
Against this background, European Safer Internet Centres (co-funded by the European Commission) as part of the Insafe-INHOPE network aim to further implement the objectives of the BIK+ Strategy at national and regional level. On one hand SICs are invited to develop raising awareness initiatives and pedagogical resources and also celebrate the Safer Internet Day. On the other hand, they are putting policies into practice and implementing helplines which are intended to be private confidential and non-judgemental and can be contacted for free from anywhere in each State Member.
These 24-hour national listening services for all children and young people (or even for parents and teachers) provides help, support and counselling services giving them means of talking through their queries or worries with trained staff.
The Helplines aims to empower, protect and support young people whatever their situation, from cyberbullying, family and relationships, to education, online safety and rights.
Often, child helplines are a child or young person’s first point of contact with child protection services, and the most trusted and accessible gateway for them to find much needed further support.
According to the BIK+ Strategy the EU co-funded Safer Internet helplines and hotlines should continue to assist the public, in particular children, when confronted with harmful and illegal content. If granted the status of ‘trusted flaggers’ under the conditions of the DSA, they will be able to contribute to a swifter assessment of and action upon notifications of illegal content online. On the other hand, the EU co-funded SIC helplines collaborate in the harmonization of the 116 111 in the sense that will addresses cyberbullying.
To give further insight into this work, during this Day 0 event participants will hear from representatives of Insafe and 4 European Safer Internet Centres (namely Portugal, Belgium, UK and Poland) who will present their national best practices on child and youth helplines. The moderator representing Insafe will start by contextualising the work of helplines within the Insafe network, followed by the presentation of helpline best practices by the other 4 Safer Internet Centre representatives. To complement and illustrate the work done, short testimonies will be shared by young people from the Better Internet for Kids Youth Ambassador network. The session will end with a discussion and Q&A session, co-facilitated by the onsite and online moderator, to allow onsite and online participants to interact with the speakers.
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/strategy-better-inter…
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/european-strategy-bett…
https://www.betterinternetforkids.eu/
https://www.betterinternetforkids.eu/practice/helplines
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-services-act-…
1) How will you facilitate interaction between onsite and online speakers and attendees?
One on-site moderator and one online moderator will jointly host this Day 0 event. The online moderator will build the bridge between the online attendees (and online speakers if applicable) and the on-site moderator, alerting her each time a question/comment is made by the online attendees. Moreover, the online moderator, will take care of written responses while the session is running, making sure questions/comments are responded to “on the go”, while also posting useful links/references in the chat for the online attendees to consult.
2) How will you design the session to ensure the best possible experience for online and onsite participants?
The Day 0 event will be supported by Power Point presentations, each speaker (present on-site) will have a short slide deck prepared to support his/her intervention. This will make the presentation more accessible to both on-site and online participants. After each presentation, a few minutes will be given to the on-site and online audience for Q/A. The on-site moderator together with the online moderator will facilitate the Q/A making sure questions and comments from on-site and online are equally considered.
3) Please note any complementary online tools/platforms you plan to use to increase participation and interaction during the session.
In what concerns the social media platforms (e.g. X), the Day 0 event will be accompanied by a dedicated hashtag (in addition to the IGF conference hashtags) which will be communicated by the on-site and the online moderator at the beginning of the session. All participants are encouraged to use the hashtag, to share comments and feedback from the session with the wider IGF community and to engage in further discussions on the topic, beyond the duration of the Day 0 event.