Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, has urged mobile phone operators to raise parents' awareness of the potential risks faced by children who use smartphones, such as access to 'adult' content.
While welcoming the progress made by operators on their work to keep children safe while using mobile phones, she warned that parents were often "not as tuned into the latest developments in mobile phones as the younger generation".
A report from the GSM Association shows that 91 companies are now working to implement the measures agreed in a Europe-wide voluntary agreement brokered by the European Commission in 2007. This means around 96% of all mobile subscribers in the EU benefit from the measures. Participating operators have agreed 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, and
• the fight against illegal content on mobiles.
[GSMA report (pdf)]