, NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 5 – Safaricom has urged stakeholders to protect children from the dangers of the cyberspace as the world marks the annual Safer Internet Day.
Stephen Chege, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Safaricom said the mobile telco has to strike a balance between encouraging users to get the most and best out of the internet while protecting children.
“We want everybody to be able to log on and learn their crafts, create and share content and advance their education without being in danger of viewing explicit content or being bullied,” said Chege.
“With the kind of reach we have, it is important to us that we tell as many individuals as possible to create a better internet by developing four critical skills: Respect, Responsibility, Reasoning and Resilience – we call these the 4Rs,” added Chege.
In November 2018, the Telco signed the Kenya Child Online Protection Industry Charter, together with GSMA and other Mobile Network Operators to signal a commitment to focus on Child Online Protection.
In addition, Safaricom has a child online safety policy in place that provides guidelines when developing products and services to ensure they are sensitive to the safety of children.
The company has also partnered with Internet Watch Foundation to block illegal child sexual content from the Safaricom network.
Over the years, Safer Internet Day (SID) has become a landmark event in the online safety calendar. It started as an initiative of the European Union SafeBorders project in 2004 and has today grown to be celebrated in close to 130 countries.
