To ensure the creation of a safe and empowering environment for all children and young people, ITU firstly developed the Guidelines for Child Online Protection (COP) in 2009. Upon the request of the Member States, the COP Guidelines have been updated and launched officially in June 2020 in all six UN Official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian Spanish).
This updated set of materials aims to raise awareness on the scope of child online protection, while providing resources and actual tools that support children, parents and educators in the development of digital skills and digital literacy, as well as industry and government stakeholders in the development of corporate and national COP policies and strategies.
In collaboration with the National Cybersecurity Authority (NCA) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ITU developed the Global Project on Child Online Protection to Create a Safe and Prosperous Cyberspace for Children, as part of a strategic partnership launched in December 2020. The Global Project aims to implement the 2020 ITU COP Guidelines through two workstreams: digital skills development and policy support.
For more details, access the ITU dedicated webpage, or check the Project Concept Note (as PDF).
The National Authority on Electronic Certification and Cybersecurity (NAECCS) of Albania raised the hand to become the first pilot country worldwide for the ITU Global Project. The roll-out of the project started in September 2021 and is planned to last until March 2023. Within this context, ITU is supporting NAECCS in rolling-out the COP Guidelines at the national level through a series of trainings, workshops, knowledge products and awareness raising campaign targeting all relevant stakeholders.
This page draws attention to the efforts made jointly by stakeholders across all relevant sectors to ensure digital safety in the online environment for children and young people in Albania, and represents a repository of all activities developed and implemented within the scope of the Global Project, with the aim of acting as a framework of reference to be replicated by other countries of the Europe Region which would be interested to become a beneficiary country for COP implementation funded by the Global Project.
The Albanian version of the ITU COP Guidelines was launched during the session "National policies to increase child online safety", held within the International Safer Internet Day on the 9th of February 2021, and organized by the National Authority for Electronic Certification and Cyber Security (NAECCS) of Albania and co-organized by ITU.