European Commission

Anyone can be affected by security issues on the internet. It sounds like a boring cliché, but it is true. I recently I found out about someone attempting to impersonate me and my work at the Commission – using fake webmail and other tactics. My advice is to check how your name is being used online! Not only that – be sure you know who you are communicating with. Most of us like to share personal information online, but we rarely think about how embarrassing – or worse! – it could be if that information was forwarded or simply available to the wrong people. That is the thinking behind the theme of this year’s Safer Internet Day:  “it’s more than a game – it’s your life.” (see the video above from the recent Data Protection Day which highlights this exact point) 

These messages take on an even greater importance when you think about the massive numbers of children who are now online.  Yes, I really want to get every European digital, but it should happen in the safest way possible. More and more kids are going online – millions each year. So when your kids turn 6 or 7, it’s time for you to start thinking about how to talk to them about the internet. An organisation called Child Focus (I visited them this morning) recommends mentioning the internet three times a week in conversation.

We can’t lock up the internet or stop children from starting their 2.0 life, especially if all their friends are going online. But we can do a lot to educate and protect them. I am thinking about situations such as when you can’t monitor their internet use. Already 26% of 9-10 year olds have an account on a social network, in the older age brackets it is up to 80% in some countries. We also know that a third of kids go online via their mobiles, and around half get online in the privacy of their bedrooms. We even know that they are sleeping 2 to 3 hours less per night than 10 years ago. In others words, it is clear that there is a lot of unsupervised internet access!

So, don’t be put off this topic if you don’t feel you are an expert – we simply all have to learn a bit more. See my speech on how we can do it here: SPEECH/11/73. For example when a child opens an account on a social network they should get high privacy settings by default. The European Commission is also working with social networking companies to make sure that, when a child opens an account on a social network, only his/her approved list of “friends” can view his/her profile by default. I will increase my efforts to talk to the EU-wide industry to encourage self-regulation and the design of safer products that help keep children safe online. This for instance is being done right now for games through the PEGI rating system. More than 80% of children and youngsters play games online so PEGI has a real practical impact.

Finally, I want to say that it is great to see events in 65 countries promoting a safer internet. The internet is more than just a game, it’s now our life.

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Tags: DAE, data protection, Digital Agenda, Digital Agenda for Europe, internet safety, online security, Safer Internet, security, SID2011