At a meeting on 12 January 2012, the Public council on Safer Internet Use – SIC advisory board, approved the annual Public report of the Centre for 2011. The participants also voted for two new deputy chairmen of the Public council: Mr. Kalin Kamenov, deputy chairman of the State Agency for Child Protection and Mr. Assen Totin, member of the board of the Association for Electronic Communications – the business organisation of the ISPs in Bulgaria.
One of the highlights in the Public report is the successful partnership with state institutions, private industry and civil society. Due to the collaboration with several public institutions in November 2011 the National Assembly finally ratified the Convention of the Council of Europe on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse for which SIC had been lobbying for the last 2 years. And a draft of a new Child Protection Bill provided for creating a register of child sexual abusers and employers’ obligation to check there candidates for jobs presuming contact with children – another piece of legislation SIC had been heavily lobbying for, including by creating a Facebook cause supported by nearly 5,000 supporters.
Due to the good cooperation between ARC Find and the three Bulgarian mobile operators, a short telephone number 124 123 was provided for the newly established Helpline at a very low charge of 0.07 euro per call notwithstanding its duration.
During 2011, the Bulgarian internet Hotline for combating illegal and harmful for minors content, conduct and contacts online received and processed a total of 751 reports. 146 of the reports concerned real illegal or harmful content or conduct online. Positive trend was the decrease in the number of reports of grooming activities – from 17 in 2010 to 7 in 2011. But a worrisome fact is that for the first time there were 2 reports about child sexual abuse images hosted in the country. Also a negative trend was the number of 50 reports about racist or xenophobic content – first time the Hotline received reports about that content category.
The Helpline which went operational in mid-April, received 261 enquiries – 196 by email, 90 by telephone, 76 by Skype and 1 in person. Most than a half concerned risks and threats for children online and ways and tools for prevention.
The Public council members committed to further supporting the activities of the Safer Internet Centre including the Safer Internet Day 2012 campaign under the motto: “Connecting generations: Discover the digital world together… safely”.
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SIC Public report 2011
