Digital Responsibility

Mobile and online communication offers immense opportunities for children and young adults, but may also expose children to harmful content, harassment or other situations in which they become victims. Telenor has introduced a number of measures to deliver safer experiences for its users, helping to ensure that the mobile phone and the Internet remain tools for opportunity and not abuse.

Joining forces to protect children online

Together with experienced partners in wider society, we take an active role in promoting safer use of communications services among children and young adults as well as among teachers, parents and caregivers. Key priorities are preventing digital bullying and contributing to develop a safe online universe for young people to explore.

In 2012, Telenor Group, along with other leading ICT players in the Internet value chain, joined the European Commission coalition to make the Internet a better place for kids.

More about the ICT Coalition for a Safer Internet Experience for Children and Young People

Creating a safe experience for youth online

Sophisticated, Internet-enabled mobile devices are found increasingly often in the hands of children and young adults. A 2013 Boston Consulting Group study commissioned by Telenor addresses the rapid expansion of online services among youth, acknowledges the risks resulting from increased access, and calls for all stakeholders to work together to find solutions.

Already we have acquired much helpful information about how to interact with children from successful outreach programmes in Norway, Malaysia, Serbia, Sweden and Montenegro, and it will be our aim to leverage synergies to launch similar initiatives at more Telenor business units going forward.

Read press release and download report

Working with law enforcement to prevent Internet misuse

We work actively to prevent criminals from distributing illegal images that depict child sexual abuse. In partnership with national and international law enforcement agencies, we take steps to prevent children from becoming victimised and to stop misuse of our services.

In several of our markets Telenor offers parental control mechanisms that enable parents to limit children’s exposure to unsuitable content (in Telenor Hungary, Telenor Serbia, Grameenphone in Bangladesh, DiGi in Malaysia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Montenegro). This way we prevent access to web domains that either national law enforcement agencies or Interpol have found to contain illegal child sexual abuse images. Telenor does not engage in any kind of censorship or evaluation of the legality of the content – this is strictly the responsibility of law enforcement. Our role is to provide the technical solution and manage the blocking mechanism based on a list of prohibited web addresses.

Preventing digital bullying

Mobile phones enable instant sharing of images and a range of other content. This can sometimes facilitate bullying. Fostering responsible use of new technologies is a priority for Telenor, which is why we seek to empower children and youth, parents and teachers to understand and address potentially harmful impacts of mobile phone usage among children.

Telenor Norway, the Norwegian Red Cross, Kids and Media and the Norwegian Media Authority came together in a partnership against digital bullying. In 2008 Telenor developed a free service that enables parents to block text or multimedia messages from certain phone numbers. The partners have also established a school campaign based on participation and dialogue with teachers, students and their parents. The campaign is called “Bruk Hue”, which can be roughly translated to “Think!”. A 2013 survey* from Telenor Norway shows that one out of two Norwegian children have experienced digital bullying among friends. The goal of “Bruk Hue” is to raise awareness on the issue; to spread knowledge about which situations that may lead to bullying and how to avoid and resolve these situations.

Since the outset in 2008 and up to the spring 2013, the campaign will have visited 400 schools and directly involved nearly 120,000 students and 22,000 parents. The Telenor survey* from 2013 shows that six out of ten children who have taken part in the awareness campaign now say they have the knowledge they need to be able to handle bullying online and on mobile phones.

Read more about the campaign against digital bullying

Read more about the study (in Norwegian)

Read more about how Telenor creates a safe user experience on mobile and Internet