UKCCIS Summit 2011 held at BT Centre on Tuesday 14 June

21 Jun 2011 UK SIC

UKCCIS Summit

The UKCCIS (UK Council for Child Internet Safety) Summit 2011 was held on 14 June 2011. Over 170 delegates, representing all sectors of UKCCIS membership attended for a thought-provoking reflection on UKCCIS progress so far and to refocus their thinking on how to advance the child internet safety agenda.

Government Ministers, Tim Loughton, James Brokenshire and Ed Vaizey presented their views on the progress of the council, the current challenges and the action they would like to see.  Tim Loughton highlighted the industry code of practice on parental controls being created by BT, TalkTalk, Virgin media and Sky and specifically underlined the government backing of the recent Bailey review.  He added that industry should not wait for legislation in order to take action and finished by urging parents to talk to their children about their online world.

Supporting the ministerial addresses were panel sessions from a variety of online safety and industry leaders as well as young people.  Indeed it was those young people who articulated their views and made their voice heard.  Professor Sonia Livingstone presented an excellent summary the latest research, namely the continued technological rate of change; that younger are less resilient to online issues; that pbetter parental tools and support is required and that schools should now focus on evaluating policies

Complementing the main sessions, were eight workshops, allowing delegates to immerse themselves in further detail such as what the Interactive Entertainment industry is doing (for example did you know ‘Call of Duty’ sold 3.2m copies in 2010?).

The UK Safer Internet Centre was delighted to have sponsored the summit, especially given that the three partners, Childnet, SWGfL and IWF are all UKCCIS council members.

The UK Council for Child Internet Safety brings together over 170 organisations and individuals from government, industry, law enforcement, academia and charities, including parenting groups. The council is governed by an Executive Board that is co chaired by Tim Loughton, Minister for Children from the Department for Education and James Brokenshire, Minister for Crime Prevention from the Home Office.