Posted: 25th Oct, 2011 By: MarkJ


The European Commission (EC) representative to the
Safer Internet Forum event in
Luxembourg, Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the EC's Digital Agenda, has warned that Europe is working towards a position where all Internet-connected devices should have
parental controls installed by default.
Neelie Kroes, VP of the EC's Digital Agenda, said:
"Children, parents and teachers need to have a smooth online experience and not have to learn new terminology and new tools for every new service they use.
In this context I strongly encourage industry to reflect on how the self-regulatory process can deliver on very concrete measures to be implemented in a consistent manner on services within the same sectors.
Of course, standards can still be higher across Europe. In the coming months, building on this existing work, I will launch a communication that will set up a European strategy to make the Internet a better place for children. It will include measures to empower and protect."
Kroes also outlined a number of new measures, which she said could materialise in the next 18 months.
Proposed EC Measures for Online Child Safety
• First, children should be able to easily report abusive content, cyber-bullying or grooming using a "single-click" system;
• Second, children's profiles on services like social networking sites should be set to privacy by default—or measures with equivalent effect;
• Third, Internet-connected devices should have parental controls installed also by default;
• Fourth, age-rating and content classification systems need expansion and improvement—including common standards and the possibility for user-driven ratings;
• And finally, we need to step up the fight against child sex abuse material. I find it appalling that it takes so much time to take down child sexual abuse content, when in other areas, for example related to copyright, content is taken down quickly.
Earlier this month four of the UK's largest broadband ISPs ( BT , TalkTalk , Virgin Media and Sky Broadband ) agreed to provide new customers with an option to
block adult web content as part of their subscription process (
here).