February the 6th sees this year’s Safer Internet Day which is organised by Insafe, a network of 23 nodes in 21 countries funded through the EU Safer Internet Programme, and is aimed at children and younger Internet users.  Each year a series of events are run to promote safer use of the internet and draw younger people’s attention to the skills required to use computers and the internet as safely as possible.

In 2006 a total of 37 countries and around 100 organisations took part in the Safer Internet Day, which was organised under the patronage of Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding.

The big success to last year’s Safer Internet Day was a worldwide “blogathon” where postings and comments were encouraged from visitors, children, schools and parents.  The Blog helped raise awareness amongst young people on the important ethical, legal and safety issues when using the Internet, such as cultural diversity, freedom of expression, social networking and file-sharing, together with the associated issues of copyright, false identity, stranger danger, hacking, security threats and more.

For this year, an online quiz is available to help educate children and young people about how to use the Internet safely and securely.  If you know of people in the targeted audience for Safer internet Day you should make them aware of this years event and also point them to the quiz.

If this Internet child safety is a concern for you, the following resources may also prove useful;

The Internet Advisory Board have published a booklet for parents to help them appreciate Internet safety called “Get with IT”.  It is quite good and includes a useful list of resources at the end. 

There is also the Webwise site which has a good range of resources, such as a 20 minute video and also information on social networking sites.

Other useful websites
http://www.kidsafe.com/
http://www.kidsafe.com/ebooks/Internet%20safety%20Report.pdf
http://www.tuki.com/ – a child friendly browser
http://www.mcgruffspo.com/cybersafetysat.html
http://www.mrwebb.com/online-child-safety.shtml
http://www.isafe.org/

If you want to report child related contect that you think may be illegal then contact Hotline.