Program ‘Protecting and supporting children to have healthy and creative interactions on the internet’

In addition to the benefits that technology and the Internet bring, there are many risks and dangers in the online environment, especially for children.
Uncle Ho once said: “If the sprout is green, the tree will be strong, if the bud is green, the leaves will be fresh and the fruit will be good, if the children are properly nurtured and educated, the nation will be strong and independent”. The 4.0 revolution has been changing all forms of activities of all citizens in the world.

In which, children, digital citizens, enjoy the great achievements of technology and the treasure of human knowledge. However, besides the benefits that technology and the Internet bring, there are countless risks and risks in the online environment, especially for children. This is an existing problem that needs action and strong involvement of agencies, organizations, businesses and the cooperation of the whole society. Today is International Children’s Day, also the first day of Action Month for Children 2021, the Prime Minister signed Decision No. protect and support children to interact in a healthy and creative manner in the online environment for the period of 2021-2025” (hereinafter referred to as the Program). This is the first time that Vietnam has issued a Program at the national level specifically for the protection of children in the online environment. The program has “dual goals” which are: (1) Protecting the secret of private life and preventing and dealing with acts of taking advantage of the online environment to abuse children, with special emphasis on the protection of children. provide children with age-appropriate knowledge and skills (digital immune system) so that children can self-identify and be able to protect themselves in the online environment; (2) Maintain a healthy network environment, develop an ecosystem of Vietnamese products and applications for children to learn, connect and entertain in a creative way. The program is highly interdisciplinary: From the side of state management agencies, there is the participation of the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Ministry of Labor – Invalids and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Public Security; the coordination of socio-political organizations Vietnam Fatherland Front, Vietnam Women’s Union, Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union Central Committee; the participation of information and communication enterprises, press agencies; and especially, to implement the Program effectively, it is necessary to involve parents, teachers, and carers. The program offers many initiatives, tasks and breakthrough solutions, including: – Deploy new technology solutions (artificial intelligence, big data…) to automatically collect and analyze early warning, prevent/process content that violates the law on children, illegal content suitable for children. – Establishing and organizing activities of the Network to rescue and protect children in the online 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; and – Develop and implement programs and activities to support and encourage businesses to develop initiatives and provide information security technical solutions to protect children from interacting safely in the online environment; propose a pilot mechanism to order businesses to provide products and services developed by Vietnamese enterprises to support children’s creative interaction in the online environment. – Integrating online notification channels on issues related to children in the network 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. – Develop and integrate into the educational program the training of “digital skillset” for children by age, including a number of contents and skills such as knowledge about the Internet, social networks; minimum information security skills; protect personal information online; how to recognize when being exploited or violated in the network environment and where information and reflection are needed… – Implement technical solutions at schools to monitor and block access to illegal content and inappropriate content for students of each age group. The promulgation of the Program is to concretize a step of the implementation of Resolution No. 121/2020/QH14 dated June 19, 2020 of the National Assembly on continuing to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation of policies and laws on child abuse prevention and control; is a strong message, showing the Government’s determination to protect the future generation of digital citizens, towards building and maintaining a safe and healthy online environment for children to unleash their creativity.