
9 February 2010
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the UK’s hotline for combating child sexual abuse content on the internet, joins its Safer Internet partners today to mark the 7th international Safer Internet Day.
Safer Internet Day is organised by
Insafe each year to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones across the world. In 2009 Safer Internet Day was celebrated through 500 events in 50 countries. The topic for this year’s campaign is ‘Think before you post!’ and aims to educate and empower children and young people to manage their online identities, including their pictures and videos, in a safe and responsible way.
"Online safety concerns all of us. Young people across Europe spend a good part of their leisure time, playing, interacting and learning on the web. The overall traffic on social networking sites has grown enormously over the last three years," said Viviane Reding, patron of Safer Internet Day for the sixth consecutive year, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media. "Therefore, it is even more our responsibility as Europeans to make the online world a safe and secure environment that everyone can enjoy”.
As part of its UK public awareness coordination role, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre has launched a number of initiatives to mark Safer Internet Day including a new cyber-bullying episode of the ‘Hector’s World’ range of educational cartoons for 5-7 year olds; a competition for 8-10 year olds and 11-16 year olds; assembly programmes for primary and secondary schools; an event at CEOP on Safer Internet Day and an interactive web map identifying different regional SID activities across the UK. For more information visit:
www.thinkuknow.co.uk/saferinternetdayuk. The IWF works in close partnership with CEOP, its UK online safety awareness lead within the EU Safer Internet Programme and its key law enforcement partner.
To coincide with Safer Internet Day, the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) is launching its new public awareness campaign: ‘Click Clever, Click Safe’. The campaign will highlight a new online green cross code: ‘Zip it, Block it, Flag it’ to help parents, children and young people understand the behaviours that will enable them to enjoy the internet safely. For more information visit:
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/ukccis/. The IWF is a member of UKCCIS and has a seat on its Executive Board.
The IWF marked the Day by helping to promote the Insafe, CEOP, and UKCCIS resources to its members and stakeholders, and to the public across its website and newsletters. It also distributed its literature and materials to libraries, Citizens Advice Bureaus, and police forces across the UK to help raise awareness of how it works to make the internet a safer place and to help point people to its internet hotline if they stumble across criminal online content so it can be removed.
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About the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)
IWF was established in 1996 by the UK internet industry to provide the UK internet Hotline for the public and IT professionals to report potentially illegal online content within our
remit and to be the 'notice and take-down' body for this content. We work in partnership with the online industry, law enforcement, government, the education sector, charities, international partners and the public to minimise the availability of this content, specifically, child sexual abuse content hosted anywhere in the world and criminally obscene and incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK.
We are an independent self-regulatory body, funded by the EU and the wider
online industry.
IWF is a member of INHOPE and part of a UK consortium with the NSPCC and CEOP, co-funded by the EU, to make the internet a safer place for children and young people. For more information visit:
http://www.iwf.org.uk/.
About the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre delivers a multi-agency holistic service dedicated to tackling the exploitation of children. This includes building intelligence around risks, tracking and bringing offenders to account, and working with children and parents to deliver the ThinkuKnow internet safety programme. For more information visit:
http://www.ceop.gov.uk/ and
http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/.
About Insafe
Insafe is the European Safer Internet awareness-raising network co-funded by the European Commission. It comprises national contact centres across the European Union and in Iceland and Norway, with partner organisations in Argentina, Australia and the USA. Insafe aims at empowering users to benefit from the positive aspects of internet whilst avoiding the potential risks. Further information is available at
www.saferinternet.org.
About the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS)
The UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) brings together organisations from industry, charities and the public sector to work with the Government to deliver the recommendations from Dr Tanya Byron's report - Safer Children in a Digital World. For more information visit:
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/ukccis/.
About INHOPE
INHOPE is the International Association of Internet Hotlines. The mission of the INHOPE Association is to support and enhance the performance of Internet Hotlines around the world, ensuring swift action is taken in responding to reports of illegal content making the internet a safer place. For more information visit:
https://www.inhope.org/.