UN marks Safer Internet Day

Feb.12,2014: : The United Nations and its partners celebrated Safer Internet Day on Tuesday with a special focus on education strategies to promote greater online safety for children and young people. “Safer Internet Day is such a great example of how the international community can collaborate in a harmonized way to create a better environment for our children,” said Hamadoun I. Touré, the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the lead UN agency for information and communication technology (ICT).
Under the theme “Creating a better Internet together,” ITU is championing the work of its Child Online Protection initiative, which offers comprehensive sets of guidelines for children, parents, teachers, policy-makers and members of the tech industry.
“ITU has a global reach, but we also understand how important it is to act at the local level within our communities,”Touré said in a video message for the Day. “Step by step, by empowering and involving children, young people, parents and teachers, we are striving to educate the next generation on what it means to be a good and responsible global citizen, he added.
Research indicates that around half of all European children have online access in their bedrooms, and a quarter of 12-to-15-year-olds now own a tablet, says the Geneva-based ITU. The use of smartphones to send, receive and post photos and videos online is also rising fast. But experts say children’s online safety skills have failed to rise at the same rate as their adoption of new applications and devices. During the course of the year, the agency has plans to collaborate with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and tech industry partners such as Skype in the Classroom to develop educational lessons for children delivered online.
Source:UN