Internet and society: Issues of children’s information security in the Internet to be discussed in the Federation Council

March 14, 2014 the Federation Council will discuss the security of children using the Internet. Parliamentary hearings will be held under the chairmanship of the Speaker of the Upper House of the Parliament Valentina Matvienko.

Senators are worried about low digital competence of children and adults. At the hearings will be offered to teach children, teachers and parents to behave safely online. It is expected that parliamentarians will offer to create and test a pilot region "child internet". The project will be launched in the new domain ".Children", which will house a limited number of sites providing a safe, positive and educational content for children and parents. According to the results of its work it can be decided to develop the project on the territory of Russia.

Also at the hearings there will be considered recommendations of experts of the Federation Council on the development of the information society. In particular, it will be asked to make changes to the model programs of general education, introduce compulsory training courses on information security, to establish qualification requirements for safe work practices on the Web for teachers of educational institutions. It is assumed that for the safety of children in the Internet should be responsible not only teachers of informatics or life safety, but also other "subject teachers".

"Today, literacy of children on safe behavior on the web is still relatively weak", - said the Chairman of the Commission on Information Society Development Lyudmila Bokova. "This is largely due to lack of school education in the relevant units and courses. Not enough digital competence and teachers. We offer the Ministry of Education to work on this issue and to protect children in the Internet", - said the senator.