In an era of rapid technological change digital media convergence, a major question is whether the existing legislation is sufficient to deal with challenges related to the protection of minors.

The internet and all online platforms are interactive environments rather than passive media as television is. As such, they raise, in a prompt and urgent manner, issues of accessibility to content or types of content that may harm the physical, moral and spiritual development of minors, issues related to specific types of crimes through computers that can be connected with audio-visual content etc.

Many specialists support the need to adapt the regulatory framework to address the multiplicity of issues related to the protection of minors in a converging media environment: eg, advertising for fatty foods, alcoholic beverages or gambling, or even web advertising on the media that is inappropriate for minors. For example, 2 out of 10 children in Greece, aged 14-16, engage in gambling in the 'real world' , which makes children a target group for companies that advertise gambling on the internet.

Even though the devices and platforms used to access content contain, increasingly, parental control tools, the spread of these tools seems to be limited so far. Parents are not so well informed on the internet, as minors are.

Many parents do not know of parental control tools; still more cannot turn them on or adapt them to the needs of their family, either because they find their installation complicated or because they have no time. Often the older children of the family are more technically-minded than their parents and can disable the parental control filters. In addition, software programmes allow parents to block access to certain websites, but they are less effective when filtering social networking sites. At the same time, there are problems related to filtering web content which can be accessed from mobile phones or game consoles, when many children in Europe use this mode of connectivity with the Internet. Finally, there are still multiple problems concerning the application and compatibility of parental control tools.

There is growing concern about the functioning of effective parental control tools, the implementation of appropriate measures to effectively verify the age of users of online audiovisual content, the use of special labeling on Internet content that will help minors navigate safely to sites appropriate for their age, the opportunity to submit comments or complaints about illegal or harmful content, the strengthening of mechanisms handling complaints in order to ensure their effectiveness, etc.

At the same time,  there is a need to put forward actions to educate parents, teachers and children, so as not to treat digital media as a threat but as a tool for  information, education, communication and entertainment and use them in a positive way for the spiritual and moral development of minors.

Such issues will be addressed at the Conference “Protection of minors in the digital age”, which is organized, under the Greek Presidency, by the Secretariat General of Information / Communication - Secretariat General of Media, at Zappeion Megaron, on 14-15 April 2014.

For more information on the event click here.