Minister of Post and Telecommunications Mr. Sid Ali Zerrouki has chaired, on Saturday, February 8th,, 2025 the ceremony of the official launch of the «National awareness campaign to protect children from the dangers of the misuse of internet». This event was organized by his ministry jointly with the Ministry of National Defense, the Information Systems Security Agency, the Command of the National Gendarmerie in addition to many ministries and bodies.
It was held at Algerie Telecom’s headquarters in Algiers, in presence of Minister of National Education Mr.Mohamed Seghir Saâdan as well as other senior officials of public institutions, representatives of security forces and the sector’s executives.
In his address, Mr. Zerrouki has tackled the content and goals of this campaign, and has declared that:
The idea of organizing such an event was conceived within the context of the widespread expansion of the internet as a result of the national strategies. It was also inspired from the growing extent of the digital hazards, which requires the adoption of a preventive and proactive approach likely to ensure citizens’ protection and mainly the vulnerable categories like children.
This campaign is included within the action plan related to the awareness raising on the dangers linked to the misuse of the internet, drawn up by a joint work team. This plan lies on four main components:
- The internet use by children (online games, surfing, social networks as well as various associated threats);
- Electronic scam;
- The dangers linked to the misuse of social networks (protection of personal data, respect of private life and security challenges);
- The violation of private life in cyberspace (cyberbullying, blackmail, insults and digital intimidation).
This citizen’s initiative is meant to raise the awareness of children, parents and teachers about the best practices that contribute to ensure a safe online surfing. Besides, it aims to inform them about the ways and means to detect and prevent the hidden cyberthreats by providing them with pieces of advice, recommendations and the best practices to use in the digital space. Also, it seeks to instill the cybersecurity culture to them.
The partners involved in this initiative agreed on implementing the aforementioned plan by launching this awareness campaign on the dangers jeopardizing children online. This priority has been defined given this category’s vulnerability and its easy targeting by malicious actors.
This campaign runs from February 8th to February 14th, 2025 and coincides with the celebration of the safer internet day on February 11th. It ambitions to:
- Raise the awareness of children, parents and teachers about the safe practices while surfing online;
- Inform the public about the ways for identifying and avoiding cyberthreats, while giving clear guidelines and responsible digital behaviors;
- Enhance the awareness about the potential hazards due to electronic games, social networks and cybersecurity importance .
The campaign will adopt a close approach thanks to the joint efforts of our partners. Workshops and awareness sessions will be organized in schools, vocational training centres, youth clubs, cultural centres, Islamic cultural centres and Koranic schools.
These activities will be supervised by executives from our ministry as well as by their counterparts from the participating sectors and bodies.
The minister concluded his address by expressing his wish to deepen cooperation and intensify coordination with all stakeholders in a bid to strengthen the digital environment protection of our country and promote innovation and the Algerian content to serve the digital sovereignty and sustainable development. He emphasized that the current challenge lies in ensuring a safe, innovative and national digital space which backs up our digital sovereignty and creates a sustainable technological environment for the future generations.
It is worth mentioning this campaign will comprise many activities and events supervised by experts who have contributed to draw up the national awareness plan from the bodies and sectors who are partners of this initiative, among which:
- Awareness lessons and workshops aimed for children at schools and various host structures, run by experts from bodies and sectors who are partners of this initiative.
- Launch of an awareness caravan to travel around the country.
- Organization of conferences in provinces for the intention of scholars and religious advisors ahead of the campaign’s launch, to provide them with further orientations and information about the topic.
- Programming of awareness preaching and lessons about the campaign’s theme in mosques.
- Sharing of digital awareness contents on websites and social networks.
- Involvement of influential figures to transmit the awareness message.
- Broadcast of awareness spots and sending short messages to citizens.
- Organization of TV shows and programs dedicated to this campaign’s theme through the media.