Expert Exchange Visit to Europe
DISC foundation as a catalyst organization to fight against internet misuse and abuse focusing on child protection in internet conduct a study trip to Germany as part of the expert exchange program organized by European Union.
Upon utilizing the opportunity, we made a visit to other nearby countries like Netherlands, France and Switzerland to understand the happenings in those countries including the law enforcement agency. The program is organized by a pioneer organization working for child protection in Internet, Germany named KLICKSAFE.
Visited Organizations
Objective:
Our objective for the visit is including but not limited to
- Introduce our organization in front of other pioneer organizations
- Seeking their recognition
- Exchange knowledge and expertise
- Seeking guidance
- Support on resource as when needed
Meeting Report
10/4/2013 Wednesday
KLICKSAFE Germany – Ludwigshafen
We reached the meeting location at 8:55 am as our meeting scheduled on 9:00 am. Our coordinator Mr. Sebastian handed over to us the detailed schedule with meeting agenda . Whole schedule consist of three days. The first day in LMK office and have to travel to Berlin on next day to complete the visits we.
Mr. Peter Berham, coordinator of Klicksafe explained about the structure and management of the German internet safer internet center and the details about the way the klicksafe is coordinating the safer internet initiative in Germany. After that Mr. B.Kimmal and S. Stingal explained the way the Klicksafe develop and promote the safer internet initiative content to children’s and parents. The next was our opportunity to present the DISC Foundation to Klicksafe. Mr. Muhammed Mustafa did this job very efficiently and they were very impressed about our vision and effort we are putting to make it as success. Next session was from Dr.Kind and he explained the way European safer internet imitative work.
At KLICKSAFE.DE
The team from UNIVERSITAT MEDIZIN visited us to deliver their presentation which was sechdule d a day before and cancelled due to flight delay. They are working on a rehabilitation project for internet related addictions. Team delivered a detailed presentation about their project. We realize that this is one of the area we lack expertize and need to develop some expertise to compact the threat.
With UNI-MEDIZINE (MAINZ) Team
The next day morning we visited ugendschutz.net in Mainz, Germany. ugendschutz.net is a child Hotline center in which they take care Youth protection on the Internet – More consideration for child related issues.
Some of the Major challenges they are dealing is
- Child abuse in Internet
- Child pornography
- Dealing with right wing extremism
As part of their initiative they are produced annual report stating ” More online risks for children and youth” and provide help for parents by creating Network for Children ( Surfing without risk), rules and security settings for safe chat with instant messengers, Educational handouts and create Network Against Cyber ??Hate (INACH) to combat rightwing extremism
At jugendschutz.net
The next schedule is in Berlin. We parked our car in Frankfurt airport and travelled to Berlin. We reached to Berlin around 2:00 pm and head to Google Berlin. There we met Mrs. Sebine Frank. She is working there as policy councilor on media literacy section. She explained the Google initiative to deliver the safer net to the world. Some of the features introduced by Google to safe guard the family is
Google Safe Search
SafeSearch is designed to screen sites that contain sexually explicit content and remove them from your search results. While no filter is 100% accurate, SafeSearch helps you avoid content you may prefer not to see or would rather your children did not stumble across
Safe search Lock
If you’re worried about others changing SafeSearch settings without your knowledge, you can protect it with a password using SafeSearch Lock. Once locked, the Google search results page will be visibly different to indicate that SafeSearch is locked.
Safe search on your phone
SafeSearch is accessible on your mobile device by using the browser to access the Google homepage.
Youtube safety mode
Opting in to Safety Mode means that videos with mature content or that have been age-restricted will not show up in video search, related videos, playlists, shows or films. While no filter is 100% accurate, we use community flagging and porn-image detection to help identify and hide inappropriate content. It is also designed to hide objectionable comments. Safety Mode on YouTube does not remove content from the site, but rather helps hide it from users who opt in.
Content filtering on Android
Google Play requires developers to label their applications according to the Google Play ratings system, which consists of four levels: Everyone, low maturity, medium maturity, or high maturity. Using a PIN code, users can lock a setting to filter apps on their devices so that only apps deemed appropriate for use can be displayed and downloaded.
Option to report inappropriate content
Several of google products, such as Google+, YouTube and Blogger, provide ways for you to create, post and share your own content. With over 72 hours of video uploaded to YouTube and 270,000 words written in Blogger every minute, you can imagine why we can’t pre-screen content. This is why we count on our millions of community users to report abuse and inappropriate content. You can find out what types of content aren’t allowed in our Terms of Use and Program Policies for our various products. We’ve created tools that let you notify us if you find content that shouldn’t be on the site. Here’s a quick guide to reporting inappropriate content in some of our most popular products.
Advise on safety issue from our parent
Below are some issues that Google can often be concerning to parents. Google work very closely with a number of child safety organizations in the US and have included advice from these partners in the sections below.
- Sexually explicit and violent material
- Meeting strangers online
- Sharing too much personal information
- Cyberbullying
- Exposure to vulgar language
- Sites promoting inappropriate behaviors such as eating disorders and drug use
- Malware
At Google Berlin
After completing the meeting with Google we went to FSM office. FSM is a Voluntary self-regulation association for multimedia services established in 1997 by e-commerce associations and companies. We met Mr. Otto Vollmers and Imme Path from FSM organization. They have explained the details about the functionality of the organization.
TheFSM is dedicated to protection of youth and minors in online media as a voluntary self-regulation.
FSM practice two approaches of self-regulation
Unregulated self-regulation
Regulated self regulation ( licensed by a public body)
Functions and tasks of the FSM
- Self-regulation of internet services
- Hotline for internet and mobile phone content
- Experts commission
- Education about technical aspects of youth protection in online media
- Promotion of media literacy and dissemination of such material
- Member of international INHOPE network to exchange reports on child abuse material between hotlines
This was the last visit of the day. We took a photograph with the team and also explained about or organization.
The day starts with small rain. It remained us in our days in Kerala. I took some video to capture the memory. We started after the breakfast. Our first meeting was scheduled at 9:30am with German media authority.
We are very sharp on our time same as our German friends. We reached on time in media authority office. We met Mr.Andreas Hamann General Manager of Media authority and Dr. Nadine Keil. They made a detailed presentation about the German media authority.
As part of their presentation, they described about the area they work and about their sustainability. In Germany the media is not controlled by Government. It is controlled by Media authority. Every citizen have to pay 17.9 Euro per month as fees to the media authority. There is total of 16 stated and having 14 media authority. Their core task is
- Licensing
- Securing plurality
- Program monitoring
- Advertising rules
- Protection of minors
- Technical transmission
- Cable (re)transmission
After their presentation, Mustafa presented about DISC foundation and exchange some common thought between us to improve the child protection in internet.
At German Media Authority
Our last program was the meeting with Fragfinn.de. It is a search engine dedicated to children with the philosophy of promoting positive content.
Faragfinn established in 1997 with the objective of providing safe Surfing Environment and Search Engine for Children with the aim of establishing a secure place in the Internet that allows children aged 6-12 to surf the Web without any risk of them finding violent or sexual content. Started as part of the initiative “A Net for Children” and was realized as a project by the Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle ultimedia-Diensteanbieter (FSM) e.V. From year 2009 fragFINN corporate society continuously funded by telecommunications and online media companies and industry associations. They are also creating apps for mobile device to use make the search engine available in handheld devices.
Mr. Mustafa provided the presentation from DISC foundation and discussed the various way to collaborate the effort. Only problem we found is that the media they are using for the search engine is completely German language.
At FragFinn
Mr.Frank was waiting for us there even though it was Friday evening. Normally in Europe, people leave early in Firday to start enjoying their weekend. The organization name is ECO.DE and it is another helpline center tightly integrated with service providers in Germany. He explained the way ECO work. We provided our presentation to him asked his advice to setup a helpline center in India.
At ECO.DEC
On Sunday morning we left from their house directly to Netherland to attend a seminar hosted by Dutch police.
As the mentioned in the name NEXT GENERATION (An innovative approach against child abuse – Images), the program is more focusing on child abuse and to ensure international collaboration to compact the child abuse.
On the Way to Amsterdam (The whole trip was 3800 KM Self Driven)
With Mr. Ian Quinn, deputy assistant director and head of the Cyber Crimes Center at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE)
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Amsterdam
The program started at sharp 10:00 am Inaugurated by Miriam Barense, Chief constable Dutch national police followed by a speech about Dutch approach to child abuse images and child sex tourism offenders by Peter Reijnders
After that Mr. Christopher Purchas from RCMP explained Technology solutions for child sexual exploitation investigation. He shared his real life experience of using technology identify and capture the child abuse criminals. Following topics are covered in conference.
10:00 to 10:15 – The Dutch approach to child abuse images and child sex tourism offenders by Peter Rejinders.
10:15 to 11:00 – Technology solutions for child sexual exploitation Investigators by Christopher Purchas, RCMP.
11:30 to 12:15 – Anonymous, the global hacker movement, and how it’s fighting against child abuse online. Karen Elazer, security expert
13:15 to 14:00 – IP address correlation as a means of identifying travelling sex offenders by Steve Smit, special agent from FBI
14:45 to 15:45 – Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangement ( MAPPA) by Charls Heyward, London Probation Trust.
15:45 16:30 – Virtual Global Taskforce by Ian Quinn, Deputy assistant director U.S immigration and customs Enforcement.
16/4/2013
09:30 to 10:30 – Undercover online Jonathen Taylor , Internet safty consultant.
10:30 to 11:15 – Demonstration tools
Xiraf & Digital camera identification with PRNU to compare from photo to offenders
A new way for finding pictures of child abuse
Teamwork on regional or national level
11:15 11:40 Webvoyagor – What data from web can tell us
11:40 to 12:05 – Text mining
12:05 to 12:30 – Case study Barzil: Say no to child abuse
13:30 to 14:15 – Approach against travelling child offenders
At The Next generation Netherlands Conference
With Assistant Director INTERPOL and RCMP Cris Purchase
With FEDPOL and JAPAN Police Deligations
With FBI Special Agent for Crime Against Children
Ducth Police Program Manager Mr. Peter and INTERPOL Director
Our next meeting is scheduled at Europol Office in a city called Den hag. We reached their on time and meet with Europol’s cybercrime officer Mr. Rodoslaw and Jesper and explained about our organization. They have explained their initiative and extended their support to train our resource to compact child abuse. The meeting was very fruitful and they were really impressed the way Mustafa present the DISC foundation to them.
Our meeting scheduled at 10:30 and we reached on time to the European commission office. There we met the commission director of child abuse and our well-wisher Dr. Michael Bosh Along with MS. Margareta Traung
We present our organization in front of them and they want us to come with solid organization structure to support our initiative. We discussed setting up a help line for children in India and they offered their extended support to achieve this task.
With European Commision Principal Administrator Mr. Michael Bosh and MS. Margareta Traung
Our first meeting was with WHO and scheduled at 12:00 am. We reached on time and met Dr. Shanti Mentis, The director or non-communicable disease.
We presented our DISC foundation in front of her .She was not shown much until our presentation reached to the health aspect of Internet addiction, Then she got alerted and shown their real interest.
After the session she made a detailed discussion and suggested the way to achieve WHO for funding purpose. Once complete she agrees to present our case in front of WHO.
DR. Shanti recommended us to create strong document with following content and submit to her by end of the year.
- Produce a Statistical data for the issue.
- Document should emphasize more on core issue
- Should present as total Mental and physical wellbeing
- Identify the resource to do the work
- Impact analysis (What will be the impact if we do this project and what will be the impact if we do not do this project)
- Create a Network of young people Strong data for the Illegal business in internet
With Dr. Shanti Mendis
We left the meeting with full of confident and energy our next meeting is with ITU scheduled at 4:00 pm. With Carla Licciardello. Carla explained the ITU initiative to secure child online. ITU is running a project called ITU-COP ( Child Online Protection ) patterned by H.E. Laura Chinchilla, President of Costa.
COP aims to tackle cybersecurity holistically, addressing legal, technical, organizational and procedural issues as well as capacity building and international cooperation. Following are the main objective for the project.
- Identify risks and vulnerabilities to children in cyberspace
- Create awareness
- Develop practical tools to help minimize risk
- Share knowledge and experience
As part of the initiative they have created some guidelines for children, Guidelines for parents, Guidelines for industry and guidelines for policy makers.
We presented the DISC foundation in front of her. She assured her assistance to make DISC foundation as members of ITU supported organization.
After the meeting we attended the general follow-up meeting for ITU standardization committee with respect to child online protection. In future, we can attend this meeting through online meetings facility available in ITU.
At ITU – COP Geneva
We started early morning to attend a meeting with Interpol Head office. This was a totally a rainy day. We reached on time to attend the meeting. Our meeting is scheduled with Mr. Michael Moran, Assistant Director of Trafficking in Human Beings at Interpol.
We reached on time for the meeting; Mr. Mic. gives us a warm welcome to the office. He introduced us to all the officers and accompanied with us to show all operations in Interpol.
We discussed about our future plan and made a detailed discussion about the upcoming program, in which we are planning to conduct a training program for Kerala law enforcement agency. He offered all his assistance to compact child online abuse in anywhere in the world. According to him, this will not be successful without having an international co-operation.
To energize our spirit, he showed us a presentation on his notice board. This was very familiar to us because of this presentation was from our web site. He informed us that he is using this presentation to explain the child abuse in internet on different meeting because of the quality of the slide.
At INTERPOL Head Quarters
After the meeting with Interpol, we rushed to our next meeting, which is with UNICEF in Geneva. A team from New York also joined in our meeting. Mr. Mustafa did a very good presentation about DISC foundation. After that there was questionnaire session to discuss the way forward. Unicef is working to produce a white paper discussing the children online protection. They offered us to connect to UNICEF India to further enhance the collaboration with UNICEF. We passed the message to them to make this have a human right issue and they help us to revamp our human right slogan to match with the legality.
At UNICEF
Next is the last meeting with the series, that was with OHCHR. There we met MS. Allegra, secretary of the committee on the right of the child and Me. Kevin, the human right officer. We presented the DISC foundation in front of them. In our presentation, we emphasis that all children’s right to use the internet. We deliver our slogan and requested a UN resolution to make this have the right of the children.
“Every child has the right to be protected while using Internet”
With this meeting we concluded our official meetings.
