Illustration. The Prime Minister, on June 1, signed Decision No. 830/QD-TTg approving the program “Protecting and supporting children to interact healthy and creatively in the online environment for the period 2021-2025”. This is the first time that Vietnam has issued a Program at the national level specifically on the issue of child protection in the online environment. The program “Protecting and supporting children to have healthy and creative interactions in the online environment for the period of 2021-2025” aims at dual goals: Protecting the secrets of private life and preventing and dealing with behaviors taking advantage of the online environment to abuse children, with special attention being paid to equipping children with age-appropriate knowledge and skills (digital immune system) so that children can self-identify and be able to ability to protect themselves in the online environment; 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 with the participation of many state management agencies including: Ministry of Information and Communications, Ministry of Labor – Invalids and Social Affairs, Ministry of Education and Training, 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 the involvement of parents, teachers and caregivers. In order to effectively implement the goal of protecting the secrets of private life and preventing and dealing with acts of taking advantage of the cyber environment to abuse children, at the same time, maintaining a healthy online environment and developing the ecosystem. By embracing Vietnamese products and applications for children to learn, connect, and entertain in a creative way, the program has introduced many innovative initiatives, tasks, and breakthrough solutions, specifically: Deploying new technology solutions (artificial intelligence, big data…) to automatically collect and analyze early warning, prevent/handle content that violates the law on children, inappropriate 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; 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. Integrate 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. 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, block and filter access to illegal content and inappropriate content for students of each age group. Previously, on May 26, the Minister of Information and Communications issued Decision No. 716/QD-BTTTT on the establishment of a network to rescue and protect children in the online environment. This network with the participation of many agencies, organizations and businesses acts as an interdisciplinary organization, helping the Minister of Information and Communications to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of state management and real results. performing the tasks of preventing child abuse in the online environment, raising social awareness and creating a safe and healthy online environment for children.

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.

The program has “dual goals” including: Protecting the secrets of private life and preventing and dealing with acts of taking advantage of the online environment to abuse children, with special emphasis on equipping children knowledge and skills appropriate for each age (digital immune system) so that children can self-identify and protect themselves in the online environment. The second goal, the program maintains a healthy network environment, develops an ecosystem of Vietnamese products and applications for children to learn, connect, and entertain in a creative way. Program to protect and support children to have healthy and creative interactions in the online environment for the period of 2021-2025 It is considered to be highly interdisciplinary with the participation of the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Public Security. In addition, the program also received the coordination of socio-political organizations, Vietnam Fatherland Front, Vietnam Women’s Union, Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union Central Committee. Information and communication enterprises, press agencies also participate and implement the program. The program also introduced many breakthrough initiatives, tasks and solutions. One of them is deploying new technology solutions (artificial intelligence, big data…) to automatically collect and analyze early warning, prevent/process content that violates the law on children , the content is not suitable for children. The program to establish and organize 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. Develop and implement programs and activities to support and encourage enterprises 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. Integrate 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. Develop and integrate into the educational program the training of “digital skills” 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, block and filter access to illegal content and inappropriate content for students of each age group. The promulgation of the above 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. law on the prevention and control of child abuse. This move is also a strong message, demonstrating 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. create. Nguyen Son The entire Program ‘Protecting and supporting children to have healthy and creative interactions on the internet’ ‘