Safer Internet Day takes place on Tuesday 9th February

 

Friday, February 5^th: As we gear up for Safer Internet Day (SID) 2021 on Tuesday 9^th February, Ireland will be joining over 170 countries worldwide in celebrating this important day.  It has grown to become a global community-led approach and SID encourages everyone – children and young people, parents and carers, teachers, educators and social workers, Industry, decision makers and politicians – to work together for a better internet. In Ireland, Safer Internet Day is promoted and coordinated by Webwise; the Irish Internet Safety Awareness Centre.

 

Virgin Media has been working with our Irish Safer Internet Centre partners – Webwise, Hotline.ie and the National Parents Council Primary – to promote SID, this year’s campaign of #BeKindOnline and encourage everyone to look after their online wellbeing.

 

At Virgin Media, we are focused on Creating Connections for Good, our long-standing promise to make sure the power of connectivity benefits all customers and communities we are proud to be a part of.

 

That is why we have some simple steps to help you get the most from your time online.

 

•  - Parental Controls: enables device-level parental controls to help protect your family online.  Our award-winning home broadband enables users to restrict access to thousands of websites that may contain age-inappropriate content. https://www.virginmedia.ie/broadband/learn-about-broadband/parentalcontrols/

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•  - Online Armour: Virgin Media has teamed up with award-winning security experts F-Secure to protect up to 15 of your family’s devices for free for 3 months and just €4 month thereafter. You can shop online, watch videos, listen to music and keep in touch with family and friends, safe in the knowledge that Virgin Media’s Online Armour is helping to protect you across all your devices, all the time.  https://www.virginmedia.ie/onlinearmour/

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•  - Free Internet Safety Training: Virgin Media is delighted to sponsor The National Parents Council Primary (NPC) free internet safety training, available for parents right across Ireland. Check out  https://www.npc.ie/region for more info.  
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Virgin Media is delighted to promote www.webwise.ie, a key educational resource which promotes the effective and safe use of the internet by young people through a sustained information and awareness strategy targeting school leaders, teachers, parents and young people themselves with consistent and relevant messages.

At Virgin Media, we are proud to have been the first major Internet Service Provider to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with An Garda Síochána. Under the Blocking Initiative, the Garda National Protective Services Bureau [GNPSB] provides each Internet Service Provider with an updated list of suspect domain names, helping to ensure safe and responsible use of online technology. More information is available here.

 

Virgin Media are also members of Hotline.ie – Ireland’s national reporting centre where members of the public can securely, anonymously and confidentially report suspected illegal content online.  More info on www.hotline.ie

 
Anna Maria Barry, head of public relations at Virgin Media said: “The internet is a fabulous place for kids to learn and play, but it can feel daunting for parents too.  Now that more people are spending more time online at home, our clever security tools will give you that extra peace of mind when your family is using the internet. We are delighted to support families right across Ireland and help them get the most out of their time online.”