Protecting minors
Protecting minors as they use our services
Our statement
“We want all our customers to be safe while they use our services. We’re particularly focusing on the group we believe is most at risk – young people. We are implementing various mechanisms to ensure that young people understand the risks they face and can stay safe when they are online or watching television.”
Mauricio Ramos, President, Liberty Global Latin America Division - Champion for Protecting Minors
Why it matters
Digital technology is an enormous force for good. It enables people to communicate with each other and access information at previously unimaginable speeds and in immense detail. But this enormous increase in opportunity is not entirely without risks, particularly for younger users. The safety of young people as they access the internet and use digital TV services is becoming an increasingly important issue, as internet and digital TV use continues to increase worldwide.
As one of the world’s leading providers of internet and digital TV (DTV) services, we understand that we have a responsibility to protect our customers when they use our services. We aim to help make the internet and digital TV a safe and secure place for everyone. However, we focus particularly on young people, as we believe this group is most vulnerable.
What we are doing
We aim to improve the safety of young people online through a graded approach: educate first; empower second; and third, enforce selectively where required.
We believe that the best way to protect people is to educate and empower them by providing the tools they need to protect themselves. That’s why we are investing in educational materials that teach young people, parents and teachers how to stay safe when they are online. We sponsor Safer Internet Day, an annual event that is organized by Insafe, a network of national organizations that coordinate internet safety awareness in Europe and also cooperates with similar organizations worldwide. We have worked with Insafe to develop practical toolkits and an interactive online eSafety website designed to give children, parents and teachers confidence when using the internet.
A number of our affiliates including UPC Netherlands, UPC Romania, Cablecom and VTR participate in ‘black-listing’ websites containing child sexual abuse images. For example VTR in Chile has launched a nationwide internet safety awareness raising campaign and has partnered with local authorities and the Internet Watch Foundation to help stop people from viewing inappropriate content on its platforms.
We also recognize the importance of protecting children when our customers use our DTV services. UPC Broadband therefore developed ‘Kidzone’ a video-based portal for child-specific content. The platform aggregates all child-appropriate content onto a single interface, enabling the customer to see the whole breadth of kids’ content that is available on the UPC platform. This enables parents and children to immediately see the programs that are relevant to them. We also have a number of parental control security features on our DTV products across a number of our affiliates.