The companies agreed to help control minors from accessing adult material via mobile devices and support awareness campaigns in an effort to protect children from pedophiles and prevent access to porn and violent images.
“This agreement is an important step forward for child safety,” the EU’s Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said. “It shows that responsible self-regulation can work at a European level.”
The commission, which co-brokered the agreement, believes that self-regulation is an ideal way to protect minors because it is more likely to keep up with the pace of ever-changing mobile technology than conventional regulation would.
The telecom operators also agreed to enable parents to classify unsuitable content and customize their children’s mobile devices. Parents are also encouraged to read available safety information and talk with their kids about the risks of using cell phones.
It is not yet clear if operators will have guidelines to follow when developing their codes, or if content-blocking software or tools will be developed to accompany the various mobile phone models.
The commission reported that in Germany, Italy and Poland, more than 90 percent of teenagers own mobile phones, and in Latvia, Lithuania and Greece, more children own cell phones than have access to the Internet through computers.
