Belgrade Open School (BOS) presented the Guide to Digital Youth Security - Privacy and Prevention of Digital Violence for young people, high school students, education workers, and all those who work with young people and want to improve their knowledge of privacy and security using digital platforms.
Digital literacy is one of the key competencies in the education system, and the acquisition of digital literacy skills is considered an important basis for quality education, protection of privacy, and protection from violence and abuse. As students spend more and more time online, having digital literacy skills is key to protecting against all the risks that digital technologies bring.
Research shows that violence in the digital space indicates that it taking on great proportions, becoming more brutal and that by behaving online, young people are increasingly at risk. These researches are presented in the Guide in order to point out the ubiquity of digital violence in our modern society and the necessity of raising awareness about this problem.
In addition to how to protect yourself from digital violence and who to turn to for help, the Guide also analyzes the topic of personal data processing by educational institutions. Although the transition to online teaching has contributed to the protection of health, it has also enabled greater processing of personal data, and there is a real fear that information about students is not sufficiently protected in the virtual world. Therefore, the emphasis in the Guide is placed on the education of employees in the educational system, so that they know how to prevent, but also to react in case of misuse of personal data.
BOS has created this Guide keeping in mind the activities and abuses lurking in the digital world, with the desire to strengthen the competencies of children and youth for safe behavior on the Internet. In addition, the aim of the Guide is to encourage adults to continuously improve their own digital literacy skills and thus work in the best interests of children and young people.
The authors of the Guide are Jelena Žunić Cicvarić and Kristina Kalajdžić.
The guide was developed within the project Save Privacy - Resist Pressure (Reclaiming Privacy: A Tool to Fight Oppression), which the Belgrade Open School implements in cooperation with Partners Serbia, SHARE Foundation, Association Da se zna!, NGO Atina and the A11 Initiative, and with support of the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia.