Skip to main content
European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA)
News article1 February 2023European Health and Digital Executive Agency

Safer Internet – Celebrating 20 years of addressing online safety

SID 2023_1st article

Safer Internet Day is globally celebrated in February and is co-organised by the Insafe-INHOPE network, with the support of the European Commission.

This year marks the 20th annual edition of Safer Internet Day, which will be celebrated on Tuesday 7 February 2023.

From cyberbullying to social networking to digital identity, each year Safer Internet Day aims to promote a safe and positive use of digital technology, especially among children and young people, and raise awareness on online safety. The campaign reaches out to children and young people, parents and carers, teachers, educators and social workers, as well as industry, decision makers and politicians, to encourage everyone to play their part in creating a better internet.

With a total budget of 22.6 million, under the Digital Europe 2021-2022 Work Programme, Safer Internet Centres across 25 EU countries and Norway are currently being co-funded to continue supporting the work of the national Safer Internet Centres by providing online safety information, educational resources, public awareness tools and counselling and reporting services, through dedicated helplines and hotlines for children, parents, and teachers and other professionals working with children.

During the month of February HaDEA will present the topic from different angles and locations, this time with a focus on Sweden.

Sweden is a leader in the child protection space, and one of the overarching themes that will be dealt with under the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union is preventing child abuse online. The Swedish Safer Internet Centre is one of the Safer Internet Centres that is currently being co-funding under the Digital Europe Programme. The centre is operated by the government agency Statens medieråd (the Swedish Media Council) and the NGO Bris (Children's Rights in Society). The main activities of the centre are managing an awareness centre and operating a helpline. The awareness centre works preventively, by providing knowledge and information to professionals and guardians. The helpline provides support to children and young people. Children and young people are involved in the work of SIC Sweden in different ways, for example as informants and youth panellists. The Swedish Safer Internet overall goal is to increase children’s online safety.

The European Strategy for a Better Internet For Kids, BIK+ adopted by the Commission in May 2022 has the scope to improve age-appropriate digital services and to ensure that every child is protected, empowered and respected online in the new Digital Decade. In line with the BIK+ strategy, one of the many resources developed by Swedish Safer Internet Centre is the Parental Guide. This informative guide is targeted to parents who want to help their children to navigate today's media landscape and touches upon the topics of handling screen time, content filters, computer games and other things related to children's and young people's media use.

Stay tuned for our next article on Safer Internet on 7 February 2023.

Background information

The Digital Europe Programme (DEP) will build on and continue to support the work of SICs which has already been carried out under the Connecting Europe Facility Telecom programme between 2015 and 2021. DEP aims to build the strategic digital capacities of the EU and to facilitate the wide deployment of digital technologies. With an overall budget of €7.5 billion, out of which €0.8 billion is managed by HaDEA, the programme will support investments in the following sectors:

  • High Performance Computing
  • Cloud, data and Artificial Intelligence
  • Cybersecurity
  • Advanced digital skills
  • Accelerating best use of technologies

HaDEA manages actions under Cloud, data and Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Digital Skills and Accelerating best use of technologies.

Details

Publication date
1 February 2023
Author
European Health and Digital Executive Agency
Programme Sector
Digital
Programme
Digital Europe Programme
Tags
Digital technologyDigital transformationEUFunded