The State Secretary Tatjana Matić and Urvan Parfentyev, the representative of the international organization INHOPE and the internet service for reporting illegal Internet material and the coordinator of the Russian national center for missing and exploited children “Ne dopusti!” met today during Parfentyev’s visit to the offices of the Safer Internet Center and NetPatrol – the national service for reporting illegal Internet material.
The discussion was also attended by the representatives of the B92 Fund as well as other partners working on the activities of the Safer Internet Center and on maintaining and developing the services of NetPatrol. The overall organizational and executive level of the effectiveness of the NetPatrol services was reviewed with the aim of making it part of the network of the international organization INHOPE which was established in 1999 in the Netherlands and which has developed since to become a network encompassing 44 online and telephone services in 38 countries around the world.
Netpatrol, a national online service for reporting illegal or harmful content on the Internet to the Safer Internet Center was established on August 22, 2013. Matić noted that the service processed over 250 reports in less than a month of it being established, a small percentage of which was related to sexual abuse of minors. These reports were forwarded to the Department of Cybercrime of the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Serbia or to other organizations that provide a mechanism for online reporting of illegal and harmful content in other countries depending on the location of the server that contains the illegal material.
Matić stated that it is necessary to connect all the relevant institutions on an international level in order to effectively stop this kind of abuse, especially when the abuse is directed towards the most vulnerable population – children.
Parfentyev said that after visiting and inspecting all of the service’s locations, partners and stakeholders, the standard of Netpatrol activities to date will be evaluated in order to enable it to join the INHOPE global network starting November.
Netpatrol operates as part of the Safer Internet Center, a partnership project of the NGO B92 Fund, the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Foreign and Internal Trade and Telecommunications of the Republic of Serbia. It is supported by the European Commission as part of its Safer Internet program.
