The measures now for an Internet with safety and peace of mind

■ The measures now for an Internet with safety and peace of mind       

The task force on a safe Internet environment with peace of mind for youth is happening at Kasumigaseki.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and concerned civil parties are involved. I am serving as chief examiner.

This time, we received updates on the situations of four stakeholders.

 1. The Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) has standardized the name and icon of its filtering services, and has created a new “High-Schooler Plus” mode that can be used on social media.

 2. The Telecommunications Services Association handles MVNO.

It will create a common site to explain filtering. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, an obligation to provide filtering also exists with MVNO, but only 24 of 54 companies currently provide it.

 3. In the National Association of Mobile-Phone Distributors, 5,400 shops (64% of its 8,400 shops nationwide) have become “Anshin Shops” (“Peace-of-Mind Shops”), and the operation of filtering is carried out thoroughly.

 4. The Conference on Promoting the Creation of a Safe Internet is formulating educational materials for guardians on Internet overuse, as well as measures against inappropriate information.

 In response to these initiatives in society, criticisms were made that schools and the Board of Education were not participating adequately, as well as that guidelines were necessary.

I made this proposal: “as the computerization of education continues, although literacy education and safety measures are separate movements, it is important to move the light and the shadow together as a single movement. Let’s deepen our cooperation with the sectors pushing the computerization of education forward.”

 The amendment to the Act on Development of an Environment that Provides Safe and Secure Internet Use for Young People was approved in the National Diet.

It included obligatory measures such as requiring device manufacturers to preinstall filtering, as well as requiring OS developers such as Apple to put in effort to make filtering easy.

The implementation of the revised law has moved Internet policy for youth one level higher.

Effort from concerned parties is needed more than ever.