In Lithuania it has been shown that the Internet penetration is 28,2%. One third of the children start browsing Internet from 7-10 years and 5 percent are less than 7 years old when already online. In Poland there are 10,600,000 Internet users (as of March 2005), which equals 27.8% country Internet penetration. In Bulgaria there are 2,200,000 Internet users (as of Sept 2005), which equals 29.3% Internet penetration on country level. These indicators are showing the similar Internet penetration tendencies of all partner countries taking part in the project (LT:28.2%, PL:27.8%, BG:29.3%).

1. Third sector activities and governmental support

In Lithuania the government has initiated several programs to address the need for communication technology and computer literacy across the population. In May 2000, the Department of Information and Informatics have created a strategy to develop Lithuania’s Information Society and identified guidelines for the next several years.

In Bulgaria, ARC Fund manages the e-Bulgaria Information Society Promotion Office (ISPO), since 2001. ISPO was set up in partnership with the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Its overall goal is to enhance the IT awareness and skills among businesses, public administration, NGOs, academic institutions and individual citizens.
The hotline is managed by e-Bulgaria ISPO under the supervision of a Public Council on safer Internet use in Bulgaria. This council was established by representatives of the government, major ISPs and NGO groups in 2003. It provides a coordination platform for the various stakeholders involved in limiting the distribution of harmful and illegal content and protecting the rights of users, particularly those of children.

Polish Awareness Node - a national coordinator of SIAP activities in Poland, comprises Nobody.s Children Foundation and NASK (The Research and Academic Computer Network).

On the 8th February 2004, the 2nd stage of nationwide social campaign “Child in the Web” has been launched. During the Safer Internet Day conference an innovative Internet project named SIECIAKI focusing on educating children and teenagers how to use Internet safely, has been presented.

In Poland, CANEE was developed as an Internet service for professionals working in the field of child abuse and neglect prevention and treatment in Eastern Europe. The service is project of Nobody’s Children Foundation.

On 15 March 2005 the Polish safer Internet awareness node addressed the upper chamber of the Polish parliament. They presented Internet safety awareness raising activities and called for Internet safety to be integrated into the school curriculum. Parliament members at the conference agreed on the importance of conducting projects dealing with illegal and harmful content in the Internet. They assured they would support further actions conducted by the Safer Internet Programme consortium in Poland.

2. International funding (nodes)

Lithuania

Social and Psychological Service Centre, Ministry of Education and Sciences of the Republic of Lithuania, and BITE GSM (second largest mobile operator in Lithuania and is a major ISP in the country) are very solid and have an extensive experience on working together for developing Safer Digital - Awareness node for Lithuania.

There is second newly developed safer Internet awareness node in Lithuania called “draugiskas Internetas”. Three partners implement the program: telecommunication company Bite Lietuva, the Ministry of Education and Science, and the Social and Psychological Service Center. A wide range of governmental institutions and NGOs has also expressed their support and willingness to cooperate.

Bulgaria

As of August 1st, 2005 ARC Fund has officially started a project to establish a national hotline under the EU Safer Internet Program. The Internet hotline – abbreviated as SAFE-NET BG – will become member of the European network of hotlines supported by the European Commission. Hotlines allow members of the public to report illegal content on the Internet. The hotlines then deal with the reports by passing them on to the appropriate body (Internet Service Providers, the police, hotlines in other countries) in accordance with their operating rules. This helps to reduce the flow of illegal content and contributes to the effective protection of Internet users.

Poland

One of the polish example initiatives is organization of “Safer Internet Day” the 8th of February 2004. The Polish Consumer Association cooperating with Foundation “Nobody’s Children” and Naukowa Akadminka Siec Komputerowa (NASK), prepared this action within the European program Safer Internet Action Plan. Poland accessed to this program in January 2004 as the first new country member of the UE. The information campaign related to the “Safer Internet Day” was aimed to protect children by increasing the institution and social groups awareness – governments, parents, teachers and children – what kind of dangers is related to using Internet, how to protect of it, what to do to eliminate existing dangers.

Poland became the first new EU member state to open a hotline for reporting illegal content online. NIFC Hotline Polska (also supported by NASK), as a hotline, makes an initial analysis of material reported to it. Cases requiring follow-up are reported to the police along with relevant technical information. So far, 138 reports have been filed to the Polish police. The Polish hotline is also a member of the INHOPE network of hotlines and cooperates with its partners in combating illegal content online. To date, it has made 65 reports to other European hotlines.

3. Parents and Teachers Needs concerning

Country specific needs

Poland

REPORT: Specific, national parent’s needs on safer Internet

Surfing on Internet, for children as well for parent’s means: interest, entertainment values, liberty, communication, information changing. But also: lack of information, invite to consumption, exposition to a lot of risks.

The Internet reputation is indisputable. This medium provides a lot of possibilities: didactic, pedagogic, socials. In the same time some kind of dangers are connected with it. Internet character – anonymity, week control tools, demands prudence, maturity and responsibility of each user.

The most important problem of Internet users is to identify situations which can influence their caution. Its concern bought groups: children and adults. Usually, adults have a lack about Internet possibilities / the discrepancies between children and parent’s computer literacy is frequent. Additionally, adults don’t know the children cautions in the net. The lack of communication in the subject of virtual experiences between them increases the gap/gulf. In consequence, “cibercriminality” became common among youth.

In Poland, as well as in the others region countries, the awareness and knowledge level about dangers generated via Internet by pedophiles are week. Each kind of initiative – if exists its, isn’t enough popular to give an unlimited access to adults.

One of the polish example initiatives is organization of “Safer Internet Day” the 8th of February 2004. The Polish Consumer Association cooperating with Foundation “Nobody’s Children” and Naukowa Akadminka Siec Komputerowa (NASK), prepared this action within the European program Safer Internet Action Plan. Poland accessed to this program in January 2004 as the first new country member of the UE. The information campaign related to the “Safer Internet Day” was aimed to protect children by increasing the institution and social groups awareness – governments, parents, teachers and children – what kind of dangers is related to using Internet, how to protect of it, what to do to eliminate existing dangers.

The governments of UE, including Polish Minister Cancel, have an important role in creation of safer Internet. The problem of Internet safety should be treated seriously by families, schools, libraries, institutions and organizations, which work for health and consumer protection and for the development of information society. Providing the access for parents and schools to the information and to the tools of safer Internet should be the part of government actions. According to the test/study results polish society doesn’t have the access to this kind of information or doesn’t know haw to use it. For this reason, polish adults need information campaign to know how protect children and the youth from the Internet risks.

One of the most important conditions for making a progress in increasing society awareness is cooperation between government institutions and the local citizen organizations. Unfortunately, for this moment this kind of cooperation doesn’t exist.

As continuation of efforts to increase the awareness of the Internet risks, The Polish Consumer Association co-organized with consortium Safe Borders and Cancel of Europe, the conference “Internet with a human face” – the 26-27 of mars 2004.

Polish consumer Politics for 2004-2006 anticipates an education campaign for consumers. On October 2004 the UOKiK had organized the conference “Electronic commerce and protection of consumers.

During the conference, CBOP-Center of Testing Social Opinions, presented the results of one of its test” Youth and Internet: Using and dangers”. Theses results alarm public opinion:

• In 50% of households, where live children and youth, young people use Internet, but only 26% of adults
• Between children the interest for Internet grow with ages
• The must of young people use the Internet regularly
• The most frequently, the children use Internet in school (76%), in home (50%) or in the friend’s house (34%)
• The most important reason to using Internet is doing homework or looking for interesting information about everything (79%)
• In more than 50% of households, when the children use Internet, they use it to participate in virtual games, to listen to the music or to mailing (about 50%)
• In opinion of 38% of adult respondents, they know very well the reasons of using Internet by theirs children, 45% - they rather know the reason. 1/5 of questioned adults don’t know why their children use Internet. The orientation level of parents depends on the age of children.

The results present the general opinion of polish adult’s parents. Even if they knowledge about children Internet using is not bad, the most of them is afraid of the risks, dangers generated by Internet.

• In the first place – sexual risks (42%)
• Lost of control, who are the friends of children?
• Aggressive, vulgar, racist, violent contents.
• Fraud, lost of time, danger for health.

If we want to protect well the children from the risks generated by Internet, we should apply for educations programs for adults. Using Internet must be conscious and safe.

Parents’ Needs Analysis Assessment Report on Internet Safety (Lithuania)

ICT is the fastest-growing sector in Lithuania. In the former Soviet Union, Lithuania was a leading manufacturer of electronics. This technological heritage provides the country with a favorable infrastructure for hardware development, the dominant part of the national ICT market.1 Software development, adaptation, and service comprise another significant share of the Lithuanian ICT market, despite high rates of software piracy.

Lithuania has the lowest percentage of Internet users in the Baltic States - By mid-2002,
21% of the population were using the Internet. Nevertheless the total amount of home PCs has been doubled every three years. In present, Lithuania has 28.2% Internet penetration and 968,000 Internet users.

TNS Gallup research has shown that the Internet is used by 63 percent of Lithuanian children and teenagers. 43 percent of them are 11-14 years old. One third of the children start browsing Internet from 7-10 years and 5 percent are less than 7 years old.

The research also showed that although parents know little about safety on the Internet, they understand that the issue is important.

The government has initiated several programs to address the need for communication technology and computer literacy across the population. In May 2000, the Department of Information and Informatics have created a strategy to develop Lithuania’s Information Society and identified guidelines for the next several years ahead.

In Lithuania like, in the rest of the world, much more people are using mobiles and Internet. At the time of the entry of Lithuania in the European Union as a full member, it is important that Lithuanian population and in particular children are protected from harmful content. Despite some legal effort, Lithuania has yet to develop a successful means for this. The only hotline in Lithuania concerning this subject is provided by the Police Department and received between March 2003 and April 2004 only one call!

Social and Psychological Service Centre, Ministry of Education and Sciences of the Republic of Lithuania, and BITE GSM (second largest mobile operator in Lithuania and is a major ISP in the country) are very solid and have an extensive experience on working together for developing Safer Digital - Awareness node for Lithuania.

There is second newly developed safer Internet awareness node in Lithuania called “draugiskas Internetas”. Three partners implement the program: telecommunication company Bite Lietuva, the Ministry of Education and Science, and the Social and Psychological Service Center. A wide range of governmental institutions and NGOs has also expressed their support and willingness to cooperate.

Parents’ Needs Analysis Assessment Report on Internet Safety (Bulgaria)

In an information society it’s all about freedom: freedom of expression and communication; market, etc. Living in developing information society, the people had to meet certain unexpected events and issues. One of these issues is general internet safety.

Only fifteen years ago, Internet safety was not an issue, because there was no even software niche developed in the free market. Back in the recent days, we have to face it as crucial issue not only of transitional countries (for example the countries of Eastern Europe), but also within the world’s leading economics.

It is not enough only to talk and theorize over the certain aspects of the regional Internet safety in Bulgaria. (Note: We agree that there is no regional Internet safety by itself, because there are no geographic obligations in the cyberspace, but we conditionally accept that the problem has to be defined and examined regionally at first.) For better orientation in the public opinion and its will, we have to examine the results of several Bulgarian surveys concerning the issue.

The following interesting facts were shown during a survey executed by the National Center for Public Opinion Research with Bulgarian parents, teachers and children:

Overview

Bulgarian children are using the Internet mostly for entertainment (50%), information (38%) and communication (36%). They are using email, relay chat, instant messaging, forum, webs sites and file download technologies, when online.

Teachers’ and Parents’ assessment

• On one hand most of the parents (68%) and teachers (66%) are assessing well the value of the Internet for their children. On the other hand 70% of the parents are not using or using the Internet rarely.
• About 40% of the parents and 50% of the teachers in Bulgaria are aware of the potential risk for the children regarding the inappropriate Internet content.
• Only 12% of the parents and 10% of the teachers are aware of the potential risk connected with Internet offenders.
• Over 30% of the parents and 40% of the teachers are not associating the Internet with any risks.

Safety issues

• Between 40% and 60% of the children using the Internet have red the inappropriate content - violence, sexual content, or have been victimized by sexual offenders.
• There is lack of risk awareness regarding Internet safety in 74% of the Bulgarian youth.
• Between 64% and 96% of the Bulgarian children are not spreading personal information over the net, but despite of this 20% of them had sent a picture, phone or personal address to an unknown chat partner. The same percent of the children will meet the chat partners in real life
• 25% of the children will not share the unpleasant event during Internet session with parents or teachers

Literacy and Responsibilities

• 50% of the Bulgarian parents point teachers as Internet trainers, and the same percent of teachers are willing to take this training back home. The children (41%) stated that this training and education should take part at school.
• 22% of the children think that the teachers are having the proper qualification for Internet training
• 36% of the parents and 31% of the teachers are not willing to use any restrictions during Internet surfing of the children
• 66% of the parents think that it is safer to use Internet at home, but 86% of them are not monitoring the children

Conclusions

The above shown results show strong interest and high assessment of the Internet as information gathering tool for the youth. Unfortunately the results show also the lack of safety awareness regarding Internet use of both, teachers and parents. These conclusions are drawing the next milestones in safety issues in Bulgaria: localization of filtering software; awareness campaign for parents and teachers.