Voluntary agreement of mobile phone operators on youth protection successfully implemented in Germany One year ago, mobile phone operators (including T-Mobile, Vodafone and O2) signed a voluntary agreement to commit themselves to a range of measures for the protection of children and young people using internet-enabled mobile phones.

This agreement was achieved following negotiations between the youth ministries of the German Länder - represented by Rhineland-Palatinate -, the Voluntary Self-control for Multimedia Service Providers (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Multimedia-Diensteanbieter, FSM) and the mobile phone operators.

Following the initiative of the Ministry for Education, Women and Youth Rhineland-Palatinate, a roundtable on youth protection and prevention on the internet and mobile phones was convened in the summer of 2006. The German Awareness Node klicksafe made significant contributions and chaired the prevention measures working group within the roundtable. At the same time, ideas of initiating a uniform, nationwide information hotline as well as a common online information portal were proposed by klicksafe.

This voluntary agreement has now been successfully implemented. First of all, parents can now block internet access and the receipt of multimedia files (MMS) on their kids’ mobile phones. Furthermore, there is now a common youth protection hotline, which is available on the same number for all contracts. The new information portal www.jugend-und-handy.de offers crucial information on youth protection in mobile telephony. klicksafe was significantly involved in the development of this website, and will also continue to closely cooperate with the FSM and the mobile phone operators in this project.

LINKS
• www.jugend-und-handy.de
• Press release of the FSM: http://www.fsm.de/inhalt.doc/PM_2008-10-17_Mobilfunk.pdf
• Press release of the Ministry for Education, Women and Youth Rhineland-Palatinate: http://www.mbwjk.rlp.de/aktuelle-nachrichten/article/doris-ahnen-begruesst-erweiterte-jugendschutzangebote-im-mobilfunkbereich.html
• www.klicksafe.de

Keywords: mobile phones, voluntary agreement, youth protection, information website