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EU moves against illegal and harmful content online |
As part of Europe's determined effort to tackle
illegal and harmful content on the Internet and new delivery platforms such as
mobile phones, a two year extension to the Safer Internet Action Plan has been
adopted by the European Parliament and Council upon the proposal of the European
Commission.
15 12 2003
To better equip parents and children with the tools and awareness they need for
daily life in an Information Society, the EU Council has agreed with the
European Parliament to accept the Commission's proposal for a two-year extension
to the Safer Internet Action Plan. This is the EU's response to tackling the
controversial issue of illegal and harmful content on the Internet. The Action
plan supports a network of hotlines in Europe where illegal content can be
reported. It encourages self-regulation; benchmarks content filtering and rating
systems and supports a European network of safer internet awareness centres.
Erkki Liikanen, European Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information
Society, said: "It is important that everyone, including parents understand the
Internet, and in particular the way their children can use it. The extension of
our Internet Action Plan is an important step in this direction."
The extended Safer Internet Action Plan includes measures to encourage exchange
of information and co-ordination with the relevant actors at national level, and
has special provisions for accession countries. Actors in the field of
self-regulation are brought together through a forum - the Safer Internet Forum
- modelled on the EU cyber-crime forum. The extended action plan covers many
different types of illegal content or conduct including racist material, and
takes account of new online technologies such as mobile and broadband content,
online games, peer-to-peer file transfer and all forms of real-time
communications such as chat rooms and instant messages. The networks of hotlines
and awareness nodes continue to be key instruments of the programme, alongside
the benchmarking of filtering software.
First calls for proposals under the Safer Internet Action Plan (EUR 13.3
million.) will be launched in July 2003.
