Towards A “Safer” Internet
for Our Children
Dr. Sherif Hashem
Executive Vice President
IT Industry Development Agency
shashem@itida.gov.eg
S. Hashem - Nov 2008
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Egypt: Building Digital Bridges
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MCIT established; launches a National ICT Plan (1999):
infrastructure, HRD, access, applications
ICT Club Initiative (2000)
Subscription-free Internet initiative (2002)
PC for every home initiative (2002)
Smart Village (2003)
Egypt Information Society initiative (2003)
Broadband initiative (2004)
ITIDA established (2004)
Arabic E-Content initiative (2005)
Education Initiative (2006)
ICT Export Strategy (2006)
S. Hashem - Nov 2008
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Cyberlaws & ICT-related Laws & Regulations
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A comprehensive IPR Law (Law No. 82/2002)
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A comprehensive Communications Act (Law No.
10/2003)
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An E-Signature law ( Law No. 15/2004)
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Children Protection Law (2008)
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Drafts:
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A Data Protection, Privacy, and Cyber Security law
A Cyber Crime law
Access to Information Law
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Children Go On-line
In Egypt, over 25% of Internet users are
children!
 Most children know about the Internet more
than their parents.
 Many parents do not monitor their children’s use
of the Internet at all.
 The majority of parents stop monitoring their
child’s use of the Internet after the child turns 14
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S. Hashem - Nov 2008
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Potential On-line Threats
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Children disclosing personal information; making
them easy targets to predators
Addiction to the Internet: Chat rooms, Games,
Music, Movies, ……
Exposure to pornographic and other in-appropriate
material
Additional challenges and threats are emerging due
to ICT-Media convergence …...
S. Hashem - Nov 2008
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How to make the Internet
a “Safer” Place for Children ???
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Awareness
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Children
Parents
Teachers
Officers
Education
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Never post personal information on-line
Don’t to “talk to strangers”
Report to parents any suspicious approaches
Respect other people’s rights
The rules are there to protect them not to control them
Education is for all ……
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How to make the Internet a Better
Place for Children ??? (cont.)
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Legal and regulatory framework
 Special
“New” legislation
 Existing legislation (criminal, privacy, data protection, …)
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Monitoring and limitations:
 At
home: Where to put the pc? Where do the kids go online? For how long? What are they doing? Who may be
trying to approach them?
 At schools
 Nationally (Gateways and ISPs)
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How to make the Internet a Better
Place for Children ??? (cont.)
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Parental controls:
 Parental
control software
 Access times
 Web browsers
 Chat rooms
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Tools
 For
parents, educators, ISPs, law enforcements, etc.
 Use of PKI and other digital identity technologies
S. Hashem - Nov 2008
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Egyptian Efforts
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Awareness
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The Education Initiative
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Connecting Egyptian schools and universities to the Internet safely
The Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement
Initiate “Cyber Peace Initiative”:
 Showcase best practices from around the world ensuring safe use
of internet.
 Raise awareness among Egyptian society about safe internet use:
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Conference in Youth International Forum - Sharm elSheik September 2007
Conference: Young people in the Internet and Mobile age: Safe and Empowered - Cairo
March 2008.
 Trigger
a national and regional dialogue on how best to secure the
safe use of internet.
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Formed a youth group (Net Aman)
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Egyptian Efforts (cont.)
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Parental control and limitations:
 ISPs:
TE-DATA, which is a leading Egyptian ISP, initiated
a “Safe Internet” option for households.
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Legal and Regulatory:
A
Children’s Law has been issued in 2008; containing
special articles that address on-line child exploitation and
pornography
 A special law enforcement unit established for
cybercrimes
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For More Information
Visit
Egypt’s Ministry of Communications & Information
Technology
http://www.mcit.gov.eg/
Information Technology Industry Development Agency
http://www.itida.gov.eg/
shashem@mcit.gov.eg
Thank You ……
S. Hashem - Nov 2008
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