This year’s Safer Internet Day, promoted by the European Network for Safer Internet (INSAFE) in collaboration with the European Commission, was held on 6 February. Events and campaigns were held in each member state to coincide with Safer Internet Day with the objective of “arousing the interest of parents and teachers in the technologies that help to protect children”. Particular attention was paid to younger children: According to the European Commissioner for the Information Society, Viviane Reding, “we must disseminate the message of safer Internet use also among children, those who are most vulnerable. If it is true that Internet offers everyone formidable opportunities, it is no less true that many are still ignorant of the hidden side of paedo-pornography and of the actions of paedophile surfers of the web”. In this regard, the Executive has published the results of a research project according to which the software programmes for filtering paedophile/pornographic contents available on today’s market are generally satisfactory: the only black spot is that of illicit sites not in English, which escape control in 30% of cases.
