International Safe Internet Day is an official holiday in many countries

The Internet is the greatest invention of mankind. The World Wide Web has changed people's perceptions of time, distance, ways of communicating, providing help, earning opportunities and spending leisure time. Thanks to the Internet, a modern person receives dozens of times more information than his parents, grandparents and more distant ancestors. Unfortunately, not everything that is found on the web is significant, reliable, logical, and safe.

The victims of the Internet are most often children and adolescents. The content of some sites shocking even an adult person, let alone talking about those whose psyche is just forming. In addition, the Internet is a good field for scammers, getting on the fishing pole of which in the virtual space is much easier than offline.

The issues of safety of the younger generation and adults in the network are worried by specialists all over the world, therefore, in 2004, the International Safe Internet Day was established.

About the founder

The initiative of the holiday was made by the European Commission, and the coordinator of the project was the organization "Insafe" (European Safer Internet Network). Insafe consists of national centers whose staff develops and implements educational programs on various aspects of security on the Internet, communicates with children and youth by telephone hotline.

Share experiences and coordinate their actions on the site saferinternetday.org. On this platform leave their ideas and development specialists and just indifferent people from around the world. Anyone can go through a special test to determine how prudent they are on the Internet.

Topical issues considered by Insafe:

• Placing photos and creating avatars on the Internet: what kind of image can you imagine the whole world, and which one can not, and why;
• Transition to questionable banners and links: it is impossible to predict exactly where such a "journey" will take place;
• Actions of intruders: how not to become a victim of deception.

As part of Insafe is Russia. Domestic authors wrote the book "ABC of Internet Security", which describes the impact of the Internet on people's daily lives, about possible threats and ways of acting in a dangerous situation.

As the International Day for Secure Internet

The founders and all those who support the initiative consider it important to promote responsible and safe use of the network. To attract public attention to the problem in the Safer internet day, various events are held.

So, a year ago in Washington there was a conference "Safe Internet Day-2014". The organizers did not focus the audience's attention on the negative aspects, but tried to demonstrate constructive ways of using the network. Young people, students and politicians who shared experience of safe staying in the World Wide Web were involved in the participation. Also, opinions of young users about the further development of the Internet were taken into account.

In other countries Safer internet day is also a day of conferences, forums, lectures on the rights and duties of users. Interested parties organize discussions, meetings with IT specialists, government officials, and law enforcement officials.

Safe Internet Day in Russia

In Russia, the holiday is celebrated since 2005. At the initiative of the Center for Secure Internet in Russia a week before the important date, the Runet Security Week is held. During the holiday itself, this or that problem of using the World Wide Web is considered. So, in 2013, issues of ethics of communication in the network were discussed, and a year later the organizers were concerned with finding ways to improve the Internet. Discussion of this problem continued in 2015. According to the organizers, the network should have positive developmental sites with content that contributes to the harmonious development of the child's personality.

The annual forums discuss the problems of creating a secure Internet environment, increasing the digital literacy of the population, including children and adolescents, and ensuring information security. The organizer of the events is the Internet Security League, on the initiative of which the Unified Register of websites containing forbidden information was created. Within the framework of the forums, there are advertising contests "My Security in the Network" and "Internet".

Since 2009, the Safe Runet Week is one of the official events of the holiday. International Internet Safety Day is celebrated on the first Tuesday of February.

What worries Russian users

According to the results of the work of the "Children online" hotline (2013), most often they turn to specialists about trolling (aggressive behavior of some users in relation to others) and cybercrime. In second place - the activities of scammers. Most users call after they have got into an unpleasant situation and want to find a way out.

Kaspersky Lab conducted a study (2014), which found that more than half of Russians are afraid of the troubles associated with the use of web cameras. With the help of this gadget criminals can easily find out the logins, passwords of accounts, commercial secrets, get access to personal photos and financial resources. Closing the camera lens does not prevent surveillance. You can protect you from uninvited guests with the help of Kaspersky Internet Security, a system developed in the laboratory for all devices.

Also, the public is concerned about the availability of "adult" sites, with child pornography, pages promoting drugs, violence, racial and other discrimination, illegal actions.

Prospects of RuNet development

The Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications takes responsibility for the following tasks of Internet development. It is planned to provide access to safe Internet resources for more users. For this purpose, new fiber-optic communication channels are being intensively expanded. It is also planned to develop e-mail and trade online. Due attention will be paid to advertising, transactions in the network, videos, social and other equally important projects. There are reasons to believe that the World Day for Secure Internet in 2016 will begin with a summary and discussion of fundamentally new problems of network development.

How to protect children

Modern parents are concerned about the safety of their children on the expanses of the network. The program "Safe Internet" will help to protect the younger generation from negative influences of the online. Children and adolescents will learn the rules of using the World Wide Web, will get knowledge on safety in the network, on the prevention of Internet addiction.

In order for the child to receive only the necessary and useful information, special computer programs have been developed. One of these is the children's browser "Gogul", which is a catalog of sites tested by teachers and child psychologists. The program allows you to keep a record of visiting web pages and restrict the child's stay on the Internet.

It is worth paying attention to the Internet filter "Censor". If you install it on a computer, you can be sure that the child will only view pages from the whitelist.

The International Safe Internet Day has become an official holiday not only in Russia and the US, but also in many other countries. In 2015, it was celebrated by more than one hundred states.