Safer Internet Day 2014

Today, (11 February), marks the eleventh annual Safer Internet Day with the theme ‘Let’s create a better internet together’, aiming to inspire the safe, responsible and creative use of technology by all.

For children and young people, SID 2014 is a chance to celebrate in helping others and being creative with the Internet, while parents and carers can learn and help to empower young people with the right knowledge to embrace technology positively and providing them with the digital skills they require for today’s world.

The Industry should work in partnership with others to create and provide a better internet environment for our children and young people.

To coincide with the day, O2 has had a busy week, as we work to support the campaign again this year, promote the safe and responsible use of online technology and mobile phones for children and young people.

This year we have worked in partnership with Stonewall to focus our attention on lesbian, gay and bisexual young people who are particularly vulnerable online. We have sponsored the ‘Staying Safe Online,’ guide which has been launched today to coincide with Safer Internet Day.

This guide provides practical advice for teachers and parents to help LGB young people avoid abuse and cyber bullying, and will be distributed to secondary schools across Britain.

Keeping children safe online can be an uncomfortable topic for parents, which can mean needing to talk openly and honestly about certain taboos around online behaviour like inappropriate messaging and meeting contacts online. There is also a need to enable parents and carers to have these frank conversations with the proper guidance and resources.

So, in addition to the guide we are also trialling a “Keeping Children Safe Online” workshop in our flagship Leeds White Rose Centre store. The sessions, led by our Gurus, will give parents the opportunity to understand the nuts and bolts of online safety, with live demos, one-to-ones and access to online resources. The aspiration is for our stores to be an enabler for the community to access the digital world safely.

“At O2, we believe in the potential of young people and are proud of our heritage in supporting them in terms of accessing the workplace, gaining digital skills and staying safe online. We have lots of plans to grow even stronger in this space” – Lucio Godoy – Head of Digital Confidence

We at O2 would like to take this opportunity to wish you a very safer internet day!