Type: Acts of the European Union: European Parliament Resolution on protecting children in the digital world

Authority: European Authorities - European Union: European Parliament

Date: 11/20/2012

Subject: The European Parliament points out that a new stage of protecting the rights of the child in the EU framework started with the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, together with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, whose Article 24 defines the protection of children as a fundamental right and provides that in all actions relating to children, whether taken by public authorities or private institutions, the child's best interests must be a primary consideration; it urges the Member States to transpose and implement, in a smooth and timely manner, Directive 2011/92/EU on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography; it points out that the internet provides children and young people with immensely valuable tools, which can be used to express or assert their views, access information and learning and claim their rights, as well as being an excellent tool of communication, providing opportunities for openness to the world and personal growth; it believes it to be extremely important that training in media skills should begin at the earliest possible stage, educating children and adolescents to decide in a critical and informed manner which paths they wish to follow in the internet and which they wish to avoid, as well as promoting fundamental values in relation to coexistence and a respectful and tolerant attitude to other people; it stresses the challenges that criminal law is faced with as regards its operation in the online environment in relation to the principles of legal certainty and legality, the presumption of innocence, the rights of the victim and the rights of the suspect; it calls on the Commission, therefore, to collect, in the framework of its reporting obligation on the transposition of Directive 2011/92/EU, exact and clear data on the crime of online grooming, including precise identification of the national provisions criminalising such behaviour; it welcomes the new proposed Data Protection Regulation and its special provisions on children's consent and the right to be forgotten; finally it Stresses that digital technology is an important learning tool for citizenship, facilitating the participation of many citizens living in peripheral areas and especially of young audiences, allowing them to fully benefit from freedom of expression and online communication.

Classification: Equality - Art. 24 Children’s rights

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