A general meeting of the Public Council under the Ombudsman for the Rights of the Child was held in Moscow. Problems of distance education, educational work in the education system and new web threats were discussed during the negotiations.

A general meeting of the Public Council under the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights was held in the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation. The subject was the interim results of 7 working groups.

Each group deals with a separate issue related to the theme of family and childhood: observance of the rights to life and health protection, education and comprehensive development, protection of the rights of children with disabilities and orphans, prevention of deviant behavior of minors and crimes against minors, information security of children and so on.

The working group on information security of children includes representatives of the Smart Internet Foundation, the administrator of the .ДЕТИ domain.

The meeting was opened by Anna Kuznetsova, Commissioner for Children’s Rights. She noted that since the beginning of 2020, there were several key changes that would undoubtedly have an impact on the work of the Public Council.

We live according to the new Constitution, where families and children are given great attention. A law on educational work in the education system has been adopted. The meaning is to strengthen and accentuate the educational component of the domestic educational system, – said Anna Kuznetsova. –  All these things impose a great responsibility on us, sets new tasks and open up new areas of work: increasing the well-being and prestige of families, raising children in the spirit of traditional family values and in a safe information environment

The results of the working group on the information security of children were reported by its head, Urvan Parfentiev (ROCIT, “Do not allow”). First of all, he noted that the members of the working group monitored the peculiarities of using the information environment by children in the context of distance learning and restrictions dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. In particular, experts talked about a surge in internet scam, including the “escalation of the hunt for personal and biometric data of children,” as well as the activation of cybercriminals from minors at high-quality software and technical level. The working group also noted the problems of the transition of the learning process to a distance format – insufficient level of technical training, digital divide and low quality of content.

To solve the last problem, – commented Urvan Parfentiev, – the members of the working group proposed to conduct a study of the organization and implementation of distance learning, both school and non-school; to initiate the development of an appropriate distance learning standard based on research results; to initiate the development of a unified software and hardware platform for distance learning at school.

Continuing the work on preparation of model information and educational materials on the information security of children and families in general; exploring the possibility of introducing machine-readable tags or artificial intelligence for research and pre-moderation of content intended for minors; creating conditions for the transfer of children’s, school and educational resources to the safe zone of the .ДЕТИ domain were among the plans of the working group.