The belgian consortium for a better internet

Today, the landscape of initiatives related to cybersecurity, e-safety, education and the promotion of a better internet for children is very fragmented in Belgium.

Many of the existing initiatives concerning safety are mostly unknown among the general public, which makes it very difficult for the Belgian citizen to find his way in the landscape of e-safety initiatives looking for informative, resources, tools, etc. Due to a lack of collaboration or dialogue, the resources that often already are very rare, are spent rather inefficiently.

The Belgian Better Internet Consortium wants to gather and streamline all Belgian actors and expertise involved in e-safety and online media literacy and concretely work together by taking joint initiatives, for instance via the creation of a “one-stop shop” for the Belgian general public. The organisations that are member of the consortium work on very diverse topics, going from technical safety, safe use to a better use of the internet. 

In order to guarantee the quality of the consortium and to meet proven needs, the creation was preceded by a qualitative mapping to define, situate and describe the existing practices and actors concerning e-safety and online media literacy /of all relevant stakeholders and existing resources. You can access the database of online media literacy initiatives Dutch-speaking initiatives here. The French- and Germanspeaking initiatives can be found here.

The members of the Consortium are:

• Inforjeunes
• imec
• Child Focus
• Center for Cybersecurity Belgium
• ACMJ
• Technofutur TIC
• Unia
• Privacy Commissie
• Média Animation
• Department of Education and Training of the Flemish Government
• CSEM

On the occasion of the Safer Internet Day 2019, B-BICO members, with the support of civil society organizations, drafted a memorandum on the digital rights of children and young people. The memorandum contains a number of recommendations and concrete examples of measures to achieve them.
Download the full note here.

If you want your organisation to join the consortium, please contact Child Focus via bbico@childfocus.org

Creating a Better Internet for All: How to include and support vulnerable groups?

Not everyone has the access, means or skills to participate fully in our digital society. Therefore, we feel it is important to improve our media literacy initiatives so that they better meet the needs and expectations of digitally and socially vulnerable audiences.

Our question was the following: How can our media literacy initiatives include and support vulnerable groups? In the framework of the European project ‘Belgian Better Internet Consor- tium (B-BICO)’, CSEM, Média Animation and Mediawijs brought together professionals, practi- tioners and experts between March and November 2021 to discuss this question.

During these «Betternet Labs», professionals from the sectors of digital inclusion, poverty, literacy and media literacy were invited to testify about the social and digital inequalities their beneficiaries are facing and to reflect on how media literacy could address them.

Secondly, during a second Bet- ternetlab, we more specifically examined the issue of supervision of children’s media practices within vulnerable families.

These meetings allowed us to identify nine main recommendations addressed to policy makers and education stakeholders.

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  Discover the Policy Brief with our 9 final recommendations in English
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• Découvrez les rapports des Betternet Labs et nos recommandations en français sur cette page.
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• Ontdek de rapporten en onze aanbevelingen van Betternet Labs in het Nederlands op deze pagina.