Child Online Safety, Protection and Reporting of Abuse COSPRA 2023 Presummit Webinar II: Safety and Privacy

The COSPRA 2022 Presummit with theme: “Child Online Safety, Protection and Reporting of Abuse in Nigeria” which held as a zoom virtual event commenced at 2:00pm on March 21, 2023. The Webinar attracted participants from various industries from the 6 geo-political regions of the country and was focused on driving profitable and progressive conversations around child online safety and protection and cover thematic areas on Safety and Privacy. The Program Officer of the Ndukwe Kalu Foundation (NKF) gave a brief introduction of the Foundation- The NKF is a Corporate Social Responsibility arm of the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA); its basic mandate is to promote online safety of children, advance the teaching and learning of ICT with regards to the youth and Women in Nigeria. It also seeks to dive deeply into the research of the Doman Name System Research (DNS) Sector and see how research fellows can support innovation in the DNS Industry. The webinar session revolved around Safety and Privacy conversations and allowed for a round table discussion between all panelists. Webinar Session: Child Online Safety, Protection and Reporting of Abuse in Nigeria Moderator:

• Eyitayo Iyortim – Chief Operating Officer, Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA).

Speakers:

• Bernard Ewah – Ag. Director, eGovernment Development & Regulatory Department, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
• Solomon Okedara – Co-Founder, Digital Rights Lawyers Initiatives.
• Shuwargwe Damak – Founder and President, Arm the Child Foundation.

Rapporteur:

• Igonor Oshoke – Program Manager, Nigeria Internet Governance Forum

Session Summary: The session started with a warm welcome and introduction of speakers by the moderator, Eyitayo Iyortim. She proceeded to give a short overview of the theme for the webinar before engaging the panelists on progressive conversations. Her introduction of the theme highlighted issues such as the neglect of the Child Online Safety Space in Nigeria, the Unified Strategy on Child Online Protection, the importance of Child Online Safety as key part in the advancing the technical development of the country and the rest of the world. Solomon Okedara on the current state of Child Online Safety in Nigeria, the evolving landscape of the subject as well as the challenges and the efforts in ensuring Child Online Safety in Nigeria. Solomon Okedara described the current trend as worrisome. This is due to the fact that we now live in a world where children as little as two and three can access digital platforms in an unsupervised or under-supervised fashion. This exposes them to a whole lot of issues that affect their mental capacity and their right to dignity of person. Referencing the Child Rights Law of 2007 which provides a right to privacy in its Section 7, right to dignity of person of the child in section 10 and the right to freedom from discrimination of the child in its section 9; he stated that these fundamental rights are very important in the proper development and growth of every child and that the Nigerian government to an extent have been making considerable efforts to protect children on the online space. He spoke about the unified efforts and policies in this regard and added that these laws need to be domesticated by every state (34 out of the 36 states in Nigeria have succeeded in domesticating these laws). However, he is of the opinion that these laws are not enough to protect every child from the dangers of being online. He suggested that implementation should be made more robust and considered the low number of specialized courts for sexual offences and child related offences as an example of poor implementation. In conclusion, he emphasized the need for parents, adults, guardians, and the general public to be conversant with existing Child Online Protection regulations and to utilize its full extent in order to protect the dignity of children on the online space. Shuwargwe Damak on the role of homes and schools in Cyber and Internet safety of the child? And recommendations for do for parents, teachers and for school administrators? Shuwargwe Damak started by establishing that children spend most of their time in two places – Home and School. This means that these places are at the forefront of child online protection. She spoke about the need for parents have constructive conversations with their kids or wards to help them understand the internet and its dangers. There is also a need for parent to monitor what children consume online as there is an ocean of information with no guarantee of accuracy or morality. She also added the need for parents, guardians, and teachers to be tech-savvy given the current digital age that we are in; being tech-savvy helps homes identify platforms that ensure child-friendly contents only are displayed. This also help homes identify systems and apps such as the Family Link app that allows parents approve, monitor and track what children are exposed to on the internet from their own gadgets. She advised that parents establish clear-cut rules on gadget use and uphold those rules to a reasonable standard. Minors should not be given access to social media until they are wise enough to make informed decisions and they should be exposed to social media in a progressive manner with close monitoring by the parents. Furthermore, she stated that for the role of the school, sensitization is very important. Schools need to sensitize the kids with capacity building sessions explaining clearly the correct use and consumption of Internet related resources. Courses on digital literacy cyber security and Internet related laws should be made available for students teachers and school administrators by the school. she also suggested that schools should collect information on websites that contain harmful content for children and store it into your register to help ensure that children do not have access to them. it was also I liked that schools should discourage children from bringing personal internet enabled gadgets into the school premises to discourage the consumption of harmful content in school. She rounded up by encouraging schools to create and maintain official social media accounts to discourage groomers or potential cyber bullies from impersonating their staff. Bernard Ewah on the role of Government in Child Online Safety, regulations and ensuring compliance with existing regulatory frameworks. Bernard Ewah spoke about a number of regulations rolled out by the Government in this regard, starting with the Child Right Act, he spoke about the challenges that came about from the rapid transition to the digital world that has happened over the last few years as this may have hampered the reach of that regulation. He also brought the attention of the participants to the recent Unified Act on Child Online Protection that the Government is currently working on as it highlights the roles technology platforms are playing in Nigeria’s development, the multistakeholderism approach in developing the regulations and also implementation models for enforcing these regulations. He stated that the efforts of child online protection in Nigeria is an official responsibility of the Government but also explained that it is not a responsibility of the Government alone and gave an example of the work being done at NITDA where they have adopted a multistakeholder model which gives them the benefit of better understanding where other stakeholders are in child online safety and synchronizing ideas. He spoke about the importance of anticipating potential dangers as an important aspect in creating regulations and ensured that the new Child Online Protection Policy contains measures for combating and preventing Child Online Dangers. In addition, he highlighted the efforts of the Government to ensure that all agencies understand their roles in enforcing these regulations. Finally, he spoke about strict regulation for social media platforms to ensure the safety of children in their spaces and data being generated from children. Regulating data privacy of kids, algorithms that suggest content to children and ensuring compliance of these platforms to those regulations are key areas for the Government. Finally, he called on education, capacity building and awareness programs for children, parents, and teachers. Key Considerations:

• There is an increased rate of access to the Internet for children under the age of 18 in an unsupervised or under supervised fashion.
• The neglect of the child online safety space in most Internet related deliberations by stakeholders and even the government.
• The role of Parents and guardians and adults in ensuring that children are safe if while accessing the Internet.
• The inadequacy of current child protection and cybercrime acts in Nigeria and the need for a comprehensive legislation one child online safety.
• The need for robust implementation of existing legislations.
• Parents and Adult guardians are not aware that laws exist to protect children and so cannot make informed decisions.
• There is a Data gap concerning children in Nigeria that has impeded the creation of holistic policies in this regard.
• The presence of predators online and the technical controls to protecting children online.
• Inability to properly enforce existing legislations on Child Online Safety.
• Initiatives taken by several NGOs and International Partners in improving child online safety.
• The unpopularity of a central reporting authority intended for cases of child online abuse.
• Negligence of teachers and Trainers in Digital skills programs. This has led to many teachers or trainers lacking adequate skills to impact the children positively.

Recommendations:

• It is the responsibility of Parents, Guardians and Adults to ensure that children don’t access the internet in an unsupervised manner.
• The Government, private sector, civil society and other Internet stakeholders need to intensify efforts to promote child online safety in Nigeria.
• Parents need to deploy adequate monitoring and censoring mechanisms for internet enabled devices that children are exposed to.
• Parents need to understand that children just like adults are also protected by the law and should be exposed to the child right acts to help them make informed decisions.
• The Government in conjunction with stakeholders need to create toolkits to address data gathering on child online safety.
• Awareness Campaigns and Capacity Building sessions targeted at parents and teachers needs to be spearheaded by all parties.
• NGOs and Civil Societies need to start to focus of gathering accurate Data to help in policy making.
• There is a need to find adequate sample sizes, so that we are able to extrapolate the data in a more realistic manner, and we’re therefore able to build programs that we help the children.
• There is a need to incorporate child online safety into the curriculum of primary and secondary schools in Nigeria.
• Courses on digital literacy cyber security and Internet related laws should be made available for students, teachers, and school administrators by the school and CSOs need to strengthen campaigns and awareness programs against child abuse online.
• Schools need to sensitize the kids with capacity building sessions explaining clearly the correct use and consumption of Internet related resources.
• Policies need to be properly implemented, reviewed, and updated to keep up with the fast-paced development of technology.
• Parents have a very important role to play in Safety and Privacy of children and this group should be especially targeted with programs and campaigns.
• Parents and Schools need to create clear-cut guidelines on device usage and maintain those rules to a judicious standard. Minors should not be given access to social media until they are wise enough to make informed decisions and they should be exposed to social media in a progressive manner with close monitoring by the parents.
• There is a need to train parents, teachers, and guardians on Digital Literacy Skills.
• Parents should leverage on existing technology to protect children and control what a child sees online.
• There is a need to have an open and honest conversation with children on appropriate behaviors online and the dangers the internet may pose to them.
• Technical controls to protecting children online should be explored by all stakeholders.
• Parents have a very important role to play in Digital Literacy and this group should be especially targeted with programs and campaigns.
• The use of Litigation as a tool to pressure the Government, not necessarily to win, but to put enough media coverage on the proceedings which may cause positive social sparks.
• Children should be slowly eased into the online world by their parents and guardians.
• There is a need to train teachers and guardians on Digital Literacy Skills.
• Parents should leverage on existing technology to protect children and control what a child sees online.
• There is a need to have an open and honest discussion with children on appropriate behaviors online and the dangers the internet may pose to them.
• Knowledgeable Parents can offer services to schools to educate children and teachers on the need for Child Online Safety.
• Technical controls to protecting children online should be explored by all stakeholders and kids’ mode should be made mandatory for all devices.