Equipping children with a ‘digital immune system’ to protect themselves online

The Prime Minister has just signed Decision 830 approving the program “Protecting and supporting children to interact healthy and creatively in the online environment for the period of 2021-2025”. With this decision, Vietnam has for the first time a separate national program on child protection online.
Danger lurking

According to statistics from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), more than 2.3 billion people under the age of 18 are accessing the Internet every day in the world. On average, one out of every three people accessing the Internet is a child. According to UNICEF in Vietnam, millions of children benefit from information technology services, but the Internet itself also increases the rate of children being sexually abused and entangled in other crimes. society, is a victim of violence and exploitation. Currently, there are a number of common forms of abuse risks on social networks that children, especially children between 11 and 16 years old often encounter. That is, children are exposed to too much fake news online; being bullied online, the risk of children’s information being leaked online, being sexually solicited online… The “digital skill set” for children by age will be developed and integrated into the educational program. (Illustration) According to UNICEF’s survey of children and young people in Vietnam, one in five children said they had been a victim of cyberbullying on the Internet. In addition, more than 75% of young people in Vietnam do not know where to seek help, by phone number or address when they need help with online problems. Statistics from the Children’s Department, Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs also show that, after 16 years of operation, the National Telephone Exchange protects children with the phone number 111 (referred to as the switchboard for short). 111) received over 4 million calls to discuss issues related to children. Experts in the field of information security said: In real life, children are protected by many social institutions such as families, relatives, schools, child care and support centers. … However, in the online environment, there is a lack of institutions to protect children. Any child who accesses the Internet is exposed to many potential risks from cyberbullying, online seduction, online fraud, or even being attacked and sexually abused in the online environment. This poses an urgent requirement for the development of a project with specific and practical actions to protect children in the online environment. Sharing the same view, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Thanh Nam, University of Education, Hanoi National University, also said that, first of all, we need to build a very healthy online environment for children because this is the current situation. space that children are exposed to every day, every hour. Along with that, it is necessary to continue to promote and diversify activities to ensure enough safe and creative play space for children in real life. Create an “institution” to protect children in the online environment The program “Protecting and supporting children to interact healthy and creatively in the online environment for the period 2021-2025” approved by the Prime Minister is expected to create an “institution” to protect children. in the network environment. The remarkable highlight of the program is to protect the secrets of private life and prevent and handle acts of taking advantage of the network environment to abuse children, with special attention being paid to equipping children “digital immune system” so that children can recognize and protect themselves in the online environment; maintain a healthy online environment, develop an ecosystem of Vietnamese products and applications for children. Children learn, connect, and entertain creatively. The program also aims to strive that 100% of elementary, junior high and high schools and child protection and nurturing facilities periodically organize programs to propagate and educate children on necessary knowledge and skills to participate in a secure network environment. 100% of children who are victims of abuse in the online environment are supported and intervened at the request of the children themselves or from their relatives and the social community. Strive for 100% of organizations and individuals, when being denounced or detected in violation of the law against children on the Internet, will be handled in accordance with the law. Along with that, websites with national domain names “.vn”, websites with IP addresses in Vietnam must self-categorize content suitable for children’s ages. The program “Protecting and supporting children to interact in a healthy and creative way on the internet for the period 2021-2025” is highly interdisciplinary. In addition to the governing body, the Ministry of Information and Communications, the program also assigns specific tasks to relevant ministries and branches such as the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Labor – Invalids and Social Affairs and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. safe. In particular, the Ministry of Public Security is assigned the task of directing the specialized network security protection force and professional forces to apply measures to prevent, detect, stop and strictly handle acts of using the environment. child abuse internet school. Directing investigating agencies at all levels to receive and handle denunciations and reports on acts of using the cyber environment to abuse children; coordinate with the Procuracy and People’s Courts at all levels in investigating, prosecuting and strictly adjudicating acts of child abuse related to the cyber environment. The program has also launched many initiatives, tasks and breakthrough solutions such as deploying new technology solutions (artificial intelligence, big data…) to automatically collect and analyze early warnings and prevent block/handle content that violates the law on children, content that is not suitable for children; establish and organize activities of “Network for child protection and rescue in the cyber environment” with the main tasks of raising awareness and sharing experiences of child protection in the online environment; receive, classify, transfer, and promptly handle complaints and problems arising from children in the online environment. Integrating online notification channels on issues related to children in the online environment with the National Child Protection Switchboard No. 111; towards forming a single application on the network environment to reflect and share issues related to children.