Richard Swetenham, Head of Unit responsible for the Safer Internet plus programme says "The Commission was very pleased to see the variety of different activities taking place to mark Safer Internet Day across Europe, and the media attention which this attracted. The Commission thanks the national awareness nodes for all the work which they put into arranging these activities. The Commission also wishes to congratulate the participants and winners of the competition to produce awareness material that was published on the worldwide blogathon. We hope that next year's Safer Internet Day will be an even greater success."

Mobile phone operators agree to make mobile phone use safer for children:

On Safer Internet Day 2007, 14 mobile operators signed a European Framework for Safer Mobile Phone use by Younger Teenagers and Children. This agreement was the result of collaboration in a High Level Group that was established by Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding in September 2006. The signature of the European Framework gathered much publicity all across Europe.

"This agreement is an important step forward for child safety," said Viviane Reding in the press release on the day. "I congratulate the mobile phone industry for moving towards protecting minors. It shows that responsible self-regulation can work at European level. The Commission will monitor very closely the effective implementation of today's agreement, for which the deadline is February 2008."

In this new text, operators agree to support:

• access control for adult content;
• awareness-raising campaigns for parents and children;
• the classification of commercial content according to national standards of decency and appropriateness;
• the fight against illegal content on mobiles.

For more information: http://ec.europa.eu/saferinternet