COUNCIL WORKING GROUP ON CHILD ONLINE
PROTECTION (RESOLUTION 179)
11th meeting, Geneva, 16 February 2016
INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION
Document XXXX-E
08 February 2016
English only
COUNCIL WORKING GROUP ON CHILD ONLINE PROTECTION
Update on the ITU Child Online Protection (COP) Initiative
In line with Res. 179 (Rev. Busan, 2014), ITU is continuing its COP activities worldwide together with the
partners of the COP Initiative.
In October 2015, the ITU Arab Regional Office organized the “ITU Regional Strategy Workshop on Child
Online Protection (COP) for the Arab Region: Empowering the future digital citizens”, in Cairo, Egypt. The
workshop was kindly hosted by and organized with the Ministry of Communications and Information
Technology in Egypt (MCIT). The event raised awareness of challenges concerning COP, as well as
facilitated sharing of relevant knowledge and experience in making the online world safe for our most
vulnerable citizens.
With the goal of bringing partners together, during Telecom World 2015, ITU organized a panel session
on “Child Online Protection: towards a result-based approach”. The session called for the need to have
international measurements in order to enable the community to capture the global impact of the
activities that will contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals.
In November 2015, ITU attended the second WeProtect Summit hosted by the United Arab Emirates
where ITU’s efforts on Child Online Protection were appreciated.
Following the adoption of the Regional Initiative on COP in Europe at World Telecommunication
Development Conference 2014, ITU and partners updated the Guidelines for Children on Child Online
Protection and Guidelines for Parents, Educators and Guardians on Child Online Protection. The new
updated versions are available online and have been translated and distributed in some European
countries.
Within the framework of CIS Regional Initiative on COP, ITU-D Sector Member - A.S. Popov ONAT and
ITU produced several important deliverables. In 2015 ONAT launched a course titled "Multimedia
distance-learning course on the safe use of Internet resources". The course is divided into three parts:
Basic (for children of pre-school and junior school age), Intermediate (for children in classes 5 to 9) and
Advanced (for senior school pupils, students, parents and teachers). Additionally, an offline course
edition (on DVD) is distributed among the schools of the CIS region lacking high-speed Internet
connection. Currently the course is available in Russian language only.
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Under the Regional Initiative framework, ITU together with the government of Turkey and ECPAT
International initiated a benchmarking study on the national initiatives on COP among the European
countries. The study is expected to be presented during the ITU Regional Workshop on Child Online
Protection (COP) for the Europe Region: “Empowering the future digital citizens”, which will be held in
Istanbul, Turkey on 25-26 April 2016.
ITU participated in the final meeting of the Interagency Working Group (IWG) on sexual exploitation of
children. At the initiative of ECPAT International, and with the aim of facilitating agreement amongst UN
entities, international child rights NGOs, and international and regional law enforcement agencies
regarding what terms should be used to describe different forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse
of children, the IWG, composed of representatives from key stakeholders, was established in September
2014. During the last meeting, the group discussed the draft version of the “Terminology Guidelines on
the Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse of Children” and incorporated several inputs of the members.
The final version is expected to be launched later this year and several events will be organized to ensure
promotion of the adopted document.
On the occasion of the celebration of the Safer Internet Day 2016 on 9 February, ITU published a blog
post on the importance of “Working for a safer online environment for young people”. The blog was
shared within the COP Community and promoted ITU’s activities related to child online safety.
The Joint Coordination Activity on Child Online Protection (JCA-COP) continues its work under ITU-T
SG17, with one meeting held since the last reporting period. SG17 revised the terms of reference and
extended the operation of JCA-COP until 2017.