PRESS CONFERENCE 2008
Content Rating and Mobile Internet Safety Conference
Press release
Inspired by the successful international conference CEE SIC 2007 of the November 2007 and the professional conference Internet & Law hold in June 2008, the organizers decided to launch the second annual conference SIC 2008 in December 15, 2008 in Nostic Palace in Prague. This time the conference was focused more on the actual topics of the internet and mobile communication.
Prague December 15, 2008. The Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic is working now on the new Media and Audio-visual law. Content rating is more and more focusing on the Internet. That is the reason why the Saferinternet Cz project is pushing ahead the issue. The project was co-organising the Content Rating and Mobile Internet Safety Conference (SIC 2008).
The event has been launched under auspices of Mr. Kasal, the Vice-Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament who came recently with the Safe Internet for children initiative. He pointed the importance of the event in his opening speech and expressed an interest of the Czech Parliament and its professional bodies to assist in the legislative process in case of need.
A demand of the internet users to get sufficient information related to the Internet content, which they are going to access became one of the central point of the Conference. The demand is relevant and coming from the growth of the text, visual and audio-visual production on the web, which includes elements inappropriate for children, youth or offending some groups of people (ethnic groups, believers, people with other sexual orientation, etc.).
The issue has been addressed by Patrick Chazerand from European Federation of Interactive Software (ISFE), who introduced the PEGI system. He said: “Interactive software industry realising its social responsibility initiated the self-regulation based on the PEGI content rating system, which makes easier for parents to take decisions related to suitable content for their children”. The classification system was developed by the Netherlands Institute for the Classification of Audiovisual Media (NICAM). The system is used in Netherlands as well as some other European countries for rating and production of TV programs. Professor Jan Jirak of the Centre of Media Studies CEMES of the Charles University in Prague, who is leading the project “Concept of unified system of the classification of audio-visual products unexceptionable for children and youth (AV klasifikace) is recommending to implement the PEGI rating system in the Czech Republic.
Questions of the internet safety for children were addressed by Jan Mühlfeit, Microsoft Chairman Europe (Microsoft). Mr.Petr Soukup of the Institute of sociological studies FSV of the Charles University followed him with concrete data of the recent studies as well as the data of just published research of the Eurobarometer focused on use of the Internet and communication technologies by children.
In the next part of the Conference in the afternoon was dealing with cyber crime topics oriented on children and safer use of the mobile phones by youngsters. It was opened by Jonny Shipp of Telefónica O2 UK, who pointed out a need of education of usage of ICT by both children and adults. European network of hotlines INHOPE was introduced by Adrian Dwyer. The main mission of the network is the struggle against spread of child porn on the Internet, against misuse of children as well as other forms of the cyber crime oriented on children - in cooperation with national and international law enforcement bodies. Concrete forms of such crime in the Czech Republic and how the Czech police struggle against were explained by Mr. Karel Kucharik of the Czech Police Presidium.
The above speeches had prologue themes of the next interesting panel discussions. The first of them was dedicated to regulation, self-regulation, and censorship. The panellists – representatives of the Czech key internet content providers (O.Svihalek/Centrum Holding, J.Kabele/iDnes, J. Hajek/Microsoft) were discussing different aspects of the issue whereas law aspects of responsibilities for the published content were analysed by JUDr. Tomas Grivna of the Law Faculty of the Charles University.
The next panel was dedicated to the state-of-the-art of the implementation of the European Framework for Safer Mobile Use by Younger, Teenagers and Children (Dohoda o implementaci národní samoregulace v ČR). The panellists were representatives of the Czech mobile operators (J.Chocova/T-Mobile, V.Recnikova/Teléfonica O2, P.Piskula/Vodafone).
The last panel was dealing with cyber crime, law and children safety. The panellists A.Dwyer/INHOPE, V.Jirovsky/MFF UK, K.Kucharik/Policie ČR a K.Kopecky/PF UP Olomouc) agreed on the fact, that the struggle against cyber crime is a very sophisticated long-term issue, which is requesting an extraordinary cooperation and collaboration of law enforcement bodies with the system of educational institutions whereas the engagement of general public and parents, first of all their education and prevention is a must for the efficient work.
At the end of the conference the Declaration of the good practice principles of empowering users to make informed decisions concerning audio-visual content was announced. The goal of the Declaration is to start a discussion to form the principles based on best practises, are transparent and clear to enable customers making the informed choice about safe and appropriate content offered by commercial content providers. The Declaration was inspired by the similar UK initiative.
The conference was supported by Microsoft, Teléfonica O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone.
Organizers:
Saferinternet.Cz is the EC supported project in the frame of the Safer Internet programme. Its goal is to increase safer internet awareness whereas the helpline to provide assistance o children’s victims of cyber crime and the hotline, which cooperates with Czech Police to struggle cyber crime, first of all child pornography.
Safer Internet Institute is a platform to study safer internet issues. The goal of the Institute is to establish the best practise repository of documents and sources to assist the Saferinternet Cz project and contribute to the methodology of the safer use of the Internet.