Internet Watch Foundation

July 2008 sees the first ever International Youth Advisory Congress (IYAC) as up to 200 young people and children from all around the world come together in London to meet with international representatives from governments, police, child protection communities and the online and mobile industries. The theme is online safety and security and the initiative, sponsored by Microsoft, Virgin Media and Visa Europe, is being led by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre.

 

The event is designed to give young people an opportunity to work with those from across all sectors who are responsible for their online protection. The outcome will be an initial roadmap of solutions and possibilities – A Children and Young People’s Global Online Charter – that will allow sectors to sign up and follow a strategic plan that ultimately will be presented to the UN as part of the 2008 Resolution of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

 

The spirit of IYAC is summed up by Anton, aged 16: “The International Youth Advisory Congress is a really cool idea with young people from all over the world to getting together and helping people like the CEOP Centre to make everyone safer online. I'm really looking forward to it - not only to meet new people but because it'll be great to make a difference too.”

 

Jim Gamble is chair of the Virtual Global Taskforce and heads the UK’s CEOP Centre: “Our aim is to cut the rhetoric and to give children and those responsible for their protection a real platform that ultimately will help dissect what is needed to make the online environment that much safer and more secure.  After all, young people are the natives of the online world, it is they who have made the virtual and the offline a converged reality and it is they who should have a real say in how they want to be protected.

 

Further information and regular updates on the IYAC initiative can be found at www.iyac.net.  

 

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The CEOP Centre is the UK’s dedicated policing organisation focused on tackling the sexual abuse of children.  It delivers a totally holistic approach combining as it does specialists from across UK and international police forces as well as the wider child protection community such as the NSPCC and industry such as Microsoft, SERCO, VISA, Ford, Vodafone, Volkswagen and Lexis Nexis.

 

Further Information:

All Media Enquiries for the UK:

Clive Michel, Miriam Rich, Vicky Gillings, Hannah Bickers

0870 000 3434