Coface

COFACE is a pluralistic organisation, at the heart of civil society, which aims at promoting family policy,

solidarity between generations and the interests of children within the European Union. It defines family

policy in Europe as being the family dimension of policies, programmes and initiatives developed

at European Union level («family mainstreaming»).

COFACE © 2012 www.coface-eu.org

Connecting generations and parenting

• Over 75% of EU children use the internet (EU Barometer)

• 49% of children have internet access from their own computer in their bedrooms (EU kids online)

• Parents have been “catching up” with the digital natives over the years

• Article 18 of the UNCRC provides that “States Parties shall use their best efforts to ensure recognition of the principle that both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of the child. Parents or, as the case may be, legal guardians, have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child. The best interests of the child will be their basic concern”.

A lot of resources and tools exist to ensure that children have a positive experience

online, but parents play a major role the actual use of these tools.

The role of parents takes various forms among which: setting up and make use of tools

available to them and discuss with their children the challenges that they can encounter

online.


The role of COFACE and family organisations

E-Safety

Kit INSAFE

Brochure

• Raise awareness of parents around the EU about topics such as online safety, positive parenting and existing tools: – In Belgium, both the “Ligue des Familles” and the “Gezinsbond”

developed a partnership with Child Focus to organize seminars and events for parents about e-safety and e-skills



Children and online advertising

• “Children belong to one of the most vulnerable groups of consumers. But although children are not ‘[adult] consumers’ as they cannot make informed choices, they are exposed to extensive advertising.” (October 2011 EU parliament report on a “new strategy for consumer policy”)

• Online advertising has grown by 15.3% in 2010 and has reached 17.7 billion € in the EU.

• Ads and marketing online is a very innovative sector and strategies used to ensure that an ad has the most visibility and impact evolve all the time.


Targeted advertising

Targeted advertising has also grown over

the past few years but despite some

advantages for consumers, tracking

children and gathering data about children's

online activities poses serious ethical and

privacy related questions.


Targeted advertising: a few examples


Contextual advertising: a few examples


Targeted advertising

April 2012

Source: Social Fresh


Protecting children’s privacy and

exposure to advertising

• COFACE drafted an article about targeted advertising and some available tools to protect children’s privacy and exposure to advertising for Safer Internet Day in February 2012.

• The article was circulated to all our Member organisations and via our newsletter in February.

• On our website, a summary of the article is available online as well as links to tutorials on how to set up some useful tools on your browser.


• The article focuses on add-ons and integrated browser tools that help manage exposure to advertising (blocking, filtering…) and protection of private data (managing tracking).

• Three main browsers are reviewed: Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome. – Firefox and its “Do-Not-Track” header as well as add-ons such as AdBlock

Plus.

– Chrome and it’s “keep my opt-outs” extension

– Internet Explorer and its integrated “Tracking Protectin Lists” feature.

• Each browser’s features are assessed according to what they can or cannot do and their relative performance and effectiveness.

• A word of caution is addressed to parents in order to ensure that they understand the limits of these tools.

• Finally, a concluding remark encourages parents to make a use of browser features in order to better protect their children online, diminish their exposure to advertising and secure their private data.

Protecting children’s privacy and

exposure to advertising

The objective of the article was to empower parents to choose a tracking

protection and ad blocking feature that suits their needs best.


• COFACE member organisations have shown great interest in articles and information about online safety since they lack expertise on technical questions.

• COFACE will explore the various topics related to online safety which might interest its members and provide practical tools, information, tutorials and multimedia material to empower member organisations and enable them to raise the awareness of parents on these topics.

• Among the topics envisaged: social networks (privacy, spam and phishing, apps, features such as the “like” button…), smartphones (apps, parental control, managing expenses…)

COFACE’s future work


For further information, please contact Martin Schmalzried: [email protected]

COFACE is supported under the European Union Programme for Employment

and Social Solidarity – PROGRESS (2007-2013). http://ec.europa.eu/progress

http://www.coface-eu.org/



mailto:[email protected]



http://ec.europa.eu/progress

Coface

Education

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