On 25 July, the new consortium behind the National Safer Internet Center (SIC- safenet.bg) held its first meeting on the upcoming activities of the Digital Children project and the ongoing management of the two key services of safenet.bg: the Children’s Online Safety Helpline and the Online Crimes Against Children Hotline.
The first planning of the Centre’s activities for the coming 18 months was attended by key SIC experts, including the Centre’s coordinator, psychologists and trainers who provide direct assistance to children and parents on the 124 123 Child Online Safety Helpline, analysts of children’s use of the internet and identification of emerging risks, etc. The meeting was also attended by experts from the Parents Association, which is one of the founders of the Centre in 2005 and is the main coordinator of the Centre and the Digital Children project, as well as experts from the Bulgarian Association for Family Planning and Sexual Health (BFPA) and the National Network for Children (NNC) – also part of the consortium and organisations that will support the activities of the Safer Internet Centre.
In the coming months, the SIC’s Hotline will continue to report illegal content, material or behaviour related to child sexual abuse (CSAM) to the Cybercrime Directorate, and for content hosted outside the country, reports will be directed, as before, to the relevant INHOPE hotline – the global network of child sexual abuse hotlines. The Centre will continue to use the ICCAM system and will continue to coordinate with INTERPOL. Technical optimisation of the Hotline and the Advisory Line is also planned.
For the 124 123 Parent and Child Advice Line, capacity building and upgrading activities are to be carried out in view of the multiplying number of calls and reports through both the helpline and the chat module. A mobile app will be developed which, in addition to being a quick connection when assistance is needed, will also be a useful alert for new trends in online fraud and abuse, as well as a valuable tool for building digital skills through games and positively engaging children.
From October 2024, the Centre’s new training activities will start. Special efforts will be focused on educational initiatives for children, young people and adults working with children to prevent online violence and develop digital-media literacy. A special focus will be placed on vulnerable children and young people, especially those with limited access to education and information about the dangers in the digital space.
The increased educational activity of safenet.bg will be carried out with the assistance of the BFPA team, which is already working on medotology with theoretical and practical tools. Teachers, pedagogical counsellors, school psychologists, social workers, health mediators and paediatricians and other professionals working with children will be trained on the methodology. An important part of the work in the coming months will be to train young people who can then train and help their peers themselves.
The National Center for Safe Internet, in partnership with the advocacy team of the National Network for Children, will also work on the analysis of the national legal framework and regulatory gaps that hinder the prevention, detection and punishment of online crimes against children. Recommendations for procedural and legal amendments will be drafted and the responsible institutions, including the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, the State Agency for Child Protection, etc. will be involved in the discussion. This part of the project activities will seek concrete actions of the state in the prevention and adequate response to online crimes against children in the country.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). Neither the European Union nor HaDEA can be held responsible for them.
