Protecting minors and human dignity in audiovisual services
The European Commission has welcomed the Parliamentary approval and the imminent adoption by the Council of a recommendation on the protection of minors and of human dignity in audiovisual and information services. The proposal for this recommendation was adopted in November 1996, following an extensive consultation process initiated by the Commission's Green Paper on this issue. Once adopted, this will represent the first legal instrument concerning the content of audiovisual and information services made available on the Internet. It responds to concerns about the availability of illegal material on-line, such as child pornography or incitement to racial hatred and violence, which is currently unregulated. The Recommendation aims to provide guidelines for national legislation and covers all electronic media. This is based on three key elements: - The involvement of all interested parties in the production of codes of conduct, such as government, industry, service and access providers; - The implementation of codes of conduct by on-line Internet service providers; - The evaluation of measures taken to combat damaging material, such as the filtering and labelling of material, and the establishment of a European network of national hot-lines.