Summary of final report from the Consumers for Internet Safety Awareness (CISA) project

CISA's main objective was to create awareness of the need for safety measures and develop the basis for educating parents, children and teachers in the safe use of the Internet. The project began in April 2001 and ran for fifteen months, bringing together consumer advocates and magazines, media educators and film experts in order to reach a wide number of consumers through sources that they trust and to represent their interests at EU, national and local level. 

Internet access, especially in schools, has been growing apace across the EU, often putting children ahead of their parents in Internet knowledge and use.  While the Internet provides a new world of educational opportunities, entertainment and information, it also provides access to some hidden dangers.  Children can access violent computer games, racist material and pornography for example, and they can also give out personal information such as their name, address and telephone number, not only to commercial businesses but also to unknown contacts in chat rooms, forums and on message boards.

The key aspects of the project were:

• To research, consult and formulate a policy document on the use of rating systems, website quality assurance schemes and options for domain names
• To develop evaluation criteria for the analysis of children's websites and to survey these in France and Austria to find the best 20 available in both countries

• To test the most available and best known filtering software in Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain and publish the results in consumer magazines and elsewhere
• To survey schoolchildren in Austria, Greece and the UK to find out about their use of the Internet
• To develop an educational programme for training seminars for teachers, parents, day carers and multipliers and to hold seminars
• To develop a model set of guidelines for children when they use the Internet, and translate it into all the official languages of the EU
• To adopt an on-going approach to European ISPs, including EuroISPA, to urge them to incorporate filtering software in their packages and promote its use. - and publish safe surfing guidelines on their websites
• To disseminate  information on Internet safety across the EU at different levels

Consultations

CISA partners have worked diligently to increase awareness of these dangers by researching the issues including consultation with family and children's organisations, Internet experts on both sides of the Atlantic, educators and parents and children themselves.  Response to the consultations was good, with organisations and individuals generally welcoming the opportunity to give advice and information. 

Those consulted included the Confederation of Family Organisations in the European Union (COFACE), Childfocus, EU Schoolnet, Save the Children, NCH Action for Children, Bond van Grote en Jonge Gezinnen, the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs (BEUC), Consumers International, the European Broadcasting Union, the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA), Microsoft, EuroISPA, and US consumer organisations and privacy organisations.

Research

To inform the advice which CISA partners disseminated, we also tested the effectiveness of filtering software, developed criteria to test children's websites, surveyed nearly 14,000 schoolchildren on their use of Internet and produced educational and paedagogic strategies for the safe use of the Internet.

Filtering and rating software

Test-Achats (Test-Aankoop), the Belgian consumer organisation, led the testing of the most available filtering and rating software by the CONSEUR Group (Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain).  These tests showed that, in general, pornographic sites are rather well filtered. At the same time, the programs do not generally filter out inoffensive sites, including those where the name could have caused confusion. On the other hand, weapons sites, violence, hate, racism, drugs or sects passed fairly easily through the filters.'

Test Achats also concluded, 'Of the 18 tested, only three offer an effective filter:’ One of these was available as a free download.

Criteria to determine the best children's websites in Austria and France

Full descriptions of the criteria developed can be found on pages 20 and 26 and the lists of the best websites on pages 29/30).

A number of 'problems' which parents need to be aware of were found when we were evaluating and recommending websites for children:

• By using links from one site to another, a child could reach sites of a completely different nature to the one he/she started from.
• Links with other sites are created and removed without notice. These links can radically modify the evaluation of a site at any given time (introduction of advertising, links to different types of sites or dangerous sites).
• The use of pop up windows, superimposed on webpages, is occurring more frequently. And they are not constant or permanent. These pop up windows usually carry advertising and provide links with new sites.

Educational strategies for the safe use of the Internet

Training programmes for teachers and parents were developed by consulting educators, other IAP projects, and the Internet itself.  Full details of the methodology and multiplier courses can be found in the section beginning on page 37 and the full training course details in annex 3).

Survey of schoolchildren

In our survey of schoolchildren, around 75% of those in the UK found harmful material on-line, many by accident.  In both Austria and UK, two fifths of the children described such sites as 'nasty' and well over half of them as 'rude'. A further two out of five in the UK and nearly a third in Austria said that they found violent sites.

In Greece, 70% of the children said that they had visited pornographic or gambling sites, in Austria 37% of the children said that they had seen pornographic sites and 27% gambling sites often or sometimes.  In the UK, 58% of the children said that they had found something rude on the Internet and 40% of the children said that they had seen something on the Internet to do with gambling or betting.

We found that children themselves think they should be protected. When asked what younger children should be protected from, UK kids said rude pictures (over 80%), violence and gambling (both over three quarters) but less than a third thought they needed to be protected from Internet shopping. 

Awareness raising

We disseminated information via the press, on ERICA's website which is now visited by around 40,000 people each month, to parents and teachers at CISA's training seminars,  and at EU and national government level.

Media

We can only estimate the number of people reached overall, but we can say that one press effort alone reached 20 million people across the EU, a further 2 million subscribers to the CONSEUR group' s magazines (in French, Flemish, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish) received information about safety on the Internet and, in particular, about filtering software. Furthermore, CISA partners have instigated numerous press, television and radio coverage in Austria, Greece, Spain and the UK.

At least fourteen websites, including three national government ones, are linked to ERICA's website.  The English and Dutch sites of the Microsoft Network are linked to the safer surfing guidelines for parents and children.

Furthermore, at least nine other organisations disseminated CISA material in their publications.

CISA training seminars

Over one thousand teachers and parents have attended training seminars in Greece, Austria and UK.  These seminars helped the participants to understand how to use the Internet and how to protect children on the Internet with advice about filtering software, safer surfing guidelines, and demonstrations of some of the pitfalls.

Government level

At EU level representations were made at the EU Commission policy seminar 11/12 June 2001, at all EU Economic and Social Committee study groups (19 March 2001, 7 May 2001, 11 June 2001 etc and leading to the ESC Opinion on cybercrime and a programme of child protection on the Internet), at the European Parliament forum (E-Ping) on 10 October 2001, at the assembly of consumer associations in Europe on 18 and 19 October 2001, at the European Forum on harmful and illegal cyber content in Strasbourg on 28 November, at the EU Council meeting on Education and Internet literacy in Strasbourg on 25 March and to all the Ministers attending the Council discussion on the IAP in June 2002.

On 26 June 2002, European Commissioner Lamy (DG Trade) held an on-line chat about EU/US Trade relations. In answer to ERICA's question asking how he responded to the TACD's call for the EU to introduce legislation to limit the marketing of potentially harmful content to children, he replied that the EU would consider it carefully with the US but agreed with the suggestion, in principle.  CISA partners led the debate on and  helped shape the TACD document (no ecom-27-02) on children and e-commerce (see www.TACD.org)

At national government level, representations have been made to the vice governor of Lower Austria and to the Greek Ministry of Education, and government officials in the Republic of Ireland, Portugal, UK and Germany.  In the UK, the Government is using our survey data, we have written to the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the Culture Minister and the  Department of Trade and Industry. Visits have been made to the Prime Minister's constituency and his agents there to discuss the issues, and to officials at No 10 and the Home Office to discuss the issues.  (German, Portuguese and UK governments have links to www.net-consumers.org).

Presentations

CISA partners also made presentations on Internet issues to 1,600 participants at an Italian Trade Union seminar in Florence, at the Bertelsmann seminar on 21^st century literacy, at a Council of Europe showcase of best projects in Strasbourg, at the Media in Transition Conference at MIT, Boston, USA, to the Canadian Film Classifiers meeting and the Alberta Association for Media Literacy (both in Canada). ERICA and Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca (SUI project) held a joint seminar on protecting children using the Internet in Barcelona which 70 people attended and national and regional television coverage of the issues reached 4 million people.

Family and Consumer Organisations

CISA has disseminated the guidelines, the policy document on the use of rating systems, website quality assurance schemes and options for domain names and other materials to around 90 family, consumer and other concerned organisations in the EU and candidate countries.  The response has indicated the multiplier effect of this dissemination.  For example, the European Schoolnet, an international partnership of more than 20 European Ministries of Education developing learning for schools, teachers and pupils across Europe, is publicising some of the CISA material.

Problems

Organisations/people thinking that they did not have a problem in their country.  (For an example, see INC's account of one of its initial methods of finding the best French websites for children aged 6 - 11 years old on page 25.  ERICA also found that parents were insufficiently aware to see the need to attend their seminar and only 'opinion leaders' attended.)

Inability to contact the right person at most EU ISPs.  The contact information including email addresses only allow access to customer services who will not/or cannot pass on requests and information.

The language barrier  CISA used English as its main language but some papers were translated into French, German, Greek and Spanish and others into English.  Translation of documents and communications can be a lengthy and an expensive task but it is one that is necessary to reach citizens across the whole European Union and for both gathering and disseminating  information.

Conclusion

CISA's multi-pronged, multi-cultural initiative to raise Internet safety awareness across the EU has achieved results at all levels: governments, ngos, teachers, parents and children.  Partners have been able to add their own strengths into this successful project which has disseminated information from each so that all EU citizens could benefit from the expertise. 

The benefits of the Internet cannot be underestimated: access to limitless information, which can be obtained so quickly, has become a necessity for all citizens in countless ways. It also enables fast and informal communication with others.  Via the Internet, access to government information and personnel, and opportunities to engage in on-line discussions etc has also added a dynamic aspect to the democracy enjoyed in the EU: 

Although the level of access to the Internet across the EU continues apace, there are still many citizens who are excluded because of the expense and/or lack of know-how.  This is certain to change over the coming years as more and more schools provide on-line access for their pupils and governments take on the responsibility to ensure cheaper public access in libraries.

Europe's children will grow up benefiting from the Information Society but they also need to be informed about and protected from the dangers it can bring.  In the fifteen months of the project, CISA has increased this awareness and provided information on how people can protect themselves and their children. Our research shows the need for this work to continue and indeed to broaden to include the issues of violence, racism, hatred, stereotyping and discrimination.

For more detailed information about this project, please click here.

The CISA partners would like to thank the European Commission for co-financing the project under the Internet Action Plan.

The views expressed and any errors or omissions are those of the author.