jeprotegemonenfant.gouv.fr is the brand new platform that the Government has just launched to help parents support their children in the use of screens and digital technology by protecting them from the dangers of the Internet.
On February 7, Safer Internet Day was held, the international day dedicated to raising awareness of digital uses – especially among the youngest and families – and to the promotion of means of protection, which celebrated its 20th anniversary. This is an opportunity to open a preventive and dialogue framework around the potential dangers of the Internet, both in terms of behavior (cyberbullying, revenge porn, cyberattacks, screen addiction, pedophilia, etc.) and content consumed. by the youngest (fake news, pornography, violence, dangerous challenges to reproduce, sensitive content, etc.). And as much to say that it is more than necessary given that, according to a study carried out by the Government and the Ipsos institute, 96% of children own or use at least one digital device in France, with a real risk of overexposure. Indeed, on average, they spend 1 hour and 19 minutes a day on weekdays in front of their screens, and 2 hours and 7 minutes on weekends. 88% of parents are not calm about the exposure of their offspring to screens and 6 out of 10 parents prefer prohibition measures, with the feeling of losing control and seeing their child lose it too. This is why the Government has set up a platform to help and support them.
I Protect My Child: a digital parenting awareness campaign
Using digital, whether via social networks, the Internet or screens in general, and avoiding the threats that come with it is not an innate thing. It is a practice that parents must teach their children, as they teach them to brush their teeth to prevent cavities or to wash their hands to avoid bacteria and viruses. This is called cyber hygiene. To help families in this task, the Government is launching jeprotegemonenfant.gouv.fra website that centralizes all the information needed to support children with screens.
This platform is “the result of the joint action of public authorities, family associations, parenting support, child protection and digital companies” and helps answer questions like “How to install and configure parental controls on your devices and consoles?”, “How to configure the filtering of certain content on social networks?” or “How do I activate a screen time limiting tool?” For a month, on the Internet, social networks and on television, several videos and vignettes will raise parents’ and children’s awareness of the importance of reasoned use of screens.
The platform jeprotegemonenfant.gouv.fr offers parents a questionnaire to guide them on the site according to their needs (age group of the child to accompany, type of PC used, operator, game consoles owned, etc.). It provides many resources, such as documents to read, videos, sites for doing family activities (creation of your own digital charter, cybersecurity games, quizzes, etc.), podcasts, on a wide range of themes. Not to mention 3018, the national number against digital violence! It also references the parental control tools to be activated on the various services and media, i.e. game consoles, platforms and social networks, television channels and on-demand audiovisual media services, my operators landlines and mobiles as well as equipment (TV, tablet, smartphone, etc.) to guide parents and enable them to take concrete action to protect their children (see our practical guide to protecting minors on TikTok). Finally, adults will find an FAQ to answer their questions when they don’t know what to do/how to react to a situation.
Google: better protection against explicit images
The Internet giants also have an important role to play in protecting the youngest and they must take their responsibilities. It’s for Google has decided to take advantage of Safer Internet Day to announce in a press release new security features for its search engine. The firm already offers SafeSearch, an option that blurs explicit images (sexual, violent, etc.) that may appear when the user browses the results. The problem is that not everyone knows about the tool and does not think to activate it before the damage is done. This is why the Mountain View firm has decided to extend SafeSearch by activating the default option. Within a few months, all explicit images will therefore be blurred without the user needing to intervene beforehand.
Subsequently, it will be possible to deactivate the filtering or, on the contrary, to make it stricter in the settings. It will also be possible to hide links and explicit texts, which is not currently the case. No deployment date has yet been announced, but no doubt these functions should arrive soon. Also on the program are biometric identification for its password manager, the possibility of using Face ID for iPhone users to access their searches and, for Americans, access to virtual payment cards for protect their bank details when shopping online.