CSA affirms commitment to child online protection initiatives

The Director-General of the Cyber Security Authority (CSA), says the Authority is committed to working with stakeholders to embark on some major policy initiatives geared towards child online protection.

This initiative is aimed at promoting cyber safety and awareness among high school students by providing them with first-hand experiences in identifying, preventing, and mitigating digital threats, especially online child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Dr Antwi-Boasiako said the development of the National Child Online Protection (COP) Framework, was currently before Cabinet, and the development of guidelines to support child online protection initiatives, the annual Africa Safer Internet Day (ASID) in February, among others.

He said currently, Ghana was ranked eighth globally on daily time spent on social media with online child sexual exploitation and abuse among the top 10 cyber crimes in the world, and that this figure was expected to increase in the coming years if attention was not given to child online safety.

The Director-General said UNICEF and the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), had reported that almost 22,000 reports of child sexual abuse material that were accessed, shared, or produced in 2022 were from Ghana.

“In that same year, the Child Online Protection Division of the CSA conducted a survey in selected senior high schools in the Greater Accra region, aiming to collect information about the online habits, risks, and vulnerabilities of students using the internet”

He said another concerning statistic established that 55.90 per cent of students admitted to interacting with strangers they met online, highlighting the potential dangers of online meetings.