MTN Nigeria expressed the need for collaborative initiatives aimed at protecting children online at a workshop titled: “Child Online Protection: Consumer Awareness on Cybercrimes.”
The two-day training was hosted by the Digital Bridge Institute (ITU Centre of Excellence) in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the GSMA; it tackled the need for a deliberate approach to providing adequate online education and protection for potentially vulnerable user groups, including teaching children how to use mobile services safely.
The event drew participants from the private and public sectors as well multinational agencies. Prominent among them were representatives of the Nigerian Communication Commission, UNICEF, and Information Technology Service providers.
Representing MTN Nigeria, Odunayo Sanya, the General Manager, Planning and Customer Management said, “Understanding how to traverse the potential pitfalls online and shield yourself from cybercrime are critical skills even today, much less for the future workforce; it should be incorporated into our educational curriculum. To be successful in securing future success, government, regulators, service providers, and parent teachers associations need to work together to create the much-needed controls, awareness and education for the protection of our children online.”
The workshop aligns with MTN Nigeria’s clear corporate development focus especially in the area of promotion of safe online space for children and the long-term interest in the success of Nigeria’s next generation of tech and business leaders. The organisation is currently collaborating with Kaspersky to provide parental control service, which allows parents, and guardians to set defined rules that will determine the level of internet content their children/wards have access to on their phones.
