Division 2 ACTION 2: TACKLING UNWANTED AND HARMFUL CONTENT

In addition to action to fight illegal content at its source, users, responsible adults where the users are minors, may need technical tools. Accessibility to these tools may be promoted in order to enable users to make their own decisions on how to deal with unwanted and harmful content (user empowerment).

Further funding should be provided to increase the information available on the performance and effectiveness of filtering software and services to allow users to make an informed choice. User organisations and scientific research institutes can be valuable partners in this effort.

Rating systems and quality labels, in combination with filtering technologies, can help to enable users to select the content they wish to receive and provide European parents and educators with the necessary information to make decisions in accordance with their cultural and linguistic values. Taking account of the results of previous projects, funding could be given to projects which aim to adapt rating systems and quality labels to take account of the convergence of telecommunications, audio-visual media and information technology and to self-regulatory initiatives to back up the reliability of self-labelling and services for assessing the accuracy of self-rating labels. Further work may also be needed to encourage take-up of rating systems and quality labels by content providers.

It would be desirable to try to take account of safe use by children when developing new technologies, instead of trying to deal with any consequences of the new technologies after they have been devised. The safety of the end-user is a criterion to be taken into account along with technical and commercial considerations. One way of doing this would be to foster an exchange of views between child welfare specialists and technical experts. However, account should be taken of the fact that not every product developed for the online world is intended for use by children.

The programme will therefore provide funding for technological measures which meet the needs of users and enable them to limit the amount of unwanted and harmful content, and manage the unwanted spam, which they receive, including:

• assessing the effectiveness of available filtering technology and providing this information to the public in a clear, simple way that facilitates comparison,

• facilitating and coordinating exchanges of information and best practices on effective ways of tackling unwanted and harmful content,

• increasing take-up of content rating and quality site labels by content providers and adapting content rating and labels to take account of the availability of the same content through different delivery mechanisms (convergence),

• if necessary, contributing to the accessibility of filter technology notably in languages not adequately covered by the market. Where appropriate, the technologies used should safeguard the right to privacy pursuant to Directives 95/46/EC^f1 and 2002/58/EC.

The use of technological measures which enhance privacy will be encouraged. Activities under this action will take fully into account the provisions of Council Framework Decision 2005/222/JHA of 24 February 2005 on attacks against information systems^f2.

Implementation of this action will be closely coordinated with the actions on promoting a safer environment (self-regulatory action) and awareness-raising (informing the public about how to deal with unwanted and harmful content).