During a seminar held yesterday at the University of Malta as part of the BeSmartOnline! programme, students reading for a degree in Education had the opportunity to participate in a discussion led by industry expert, Ms. Annie Mullins OBE, Global Head of Content Standards at Vodafone Group.
Ms. Mullins is responsible for ensuring the protection of Vodafone’s customers, particularly the younger users accessing new content services. Previously she was a member of the UK Home Office Child Protection and the Internet Task Force producing industry best practice guidance for the world-wide-web, chat and instant messaging services and social networking. In 2007 Ms. Mullins was awarded the UK Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) Internet Hero for Protection of Children on the Internet and in 2009 a British civil honour the OBE for services to children. Currently, Ms. Mullins, along with other industry players, is leading an industry initiative at European level, ‘ICT Principles’. This initiative, which will be launched in the next few weeks, brings together a wide group of European and Global companies to increase child protection across the converging value chain.
During the seminar, Ms. Mullins addressed the issues associated with children’s digital lives such as their digital footprint, social media and the new tools Vodafone recently brought to the market, including the Vodafone Guardian (an App for Android Smart phones) and the Digital Parenting App and Magazine, which are all vital instruments that help parents use both the tools and stay up to date and informed on how to keep their children safer while using technology responsibly.
Ms. Mullins stressed the importance of parental and teacher involvement in children’s digital lives to ensure that they are informed and up to date themselves, so they can manage their children’s technology use more safely and responsibly. During her lecture, Ms. Mullins highlighted resources such as Vodafone’s Digital Parenting (www.vodafone.com/parents) and the industry sponsored website of teachers and schools TeachToday (www.teachtoday.eu).
“In today’s fast moving technological world it is critical that parents and teachers have at their disposal the most up to date tools and knowledge about keeping children protected in their online worlds. Vodafone has pushed the boundaries in ensuring parents can have a one stop website, Vodafone’s Parents Guide is a one stop shop of all the technology tools parents should know about, be it mobile phones, social networking or gaming and what the potential social and safety issues might be. Vodafone has also recently launched an App, the Vodafone Guardian for Android phones to help parents manage their children use of smart phones, for example who can call or SMS their child, access to the internet and apps,” Annie Mullins stated.
On behalf of the BeSmartOnline! consortium, the MCA Executive Chairman, Ing. Philip Micallef, thanked Vodafone and the University of Malta for the support they are giving to this project. ‘The exchange of knowledge and sharing of experiences, as well as strong collaboration between all stakeholders is of paramount importance in helping make the Internet an environment where children learn and enjoy the experience safely,’ said Ing. Micallef.
Additional information
Coordinated by the Malta Communications Authority, the BeSmartOnline! project brings Agenzija Appogg, the Office of the Commissioner for Children, the Directorate for Educational Services (DES), the Secretariat for Catholic Education, and the Malta Police Force. The partners are working together towards raising awareness and educating minors, carers and educators on the safer use of the Internet, establishing, operating and promoting reporting facilities for internet abuse as well as providing support to respective victims and their families.
Supportline 179, the national helpline, has extended its services to cater for any queries or assistance the public may have on the issue of Internet safety. In addition a hotline has been set up for the project offering support and advice on matters of internet safety and also serving as a channel to report abuse. More information on the initiative may be found on the www.besmartonline.org.mt website.
The project is co-financed by the Safer Internet Programme of the European Union.