- The new law of the Spanish Government regulates the obligation for telephone companies to include serial parental control. The cooperative has described the law as a breakthrough, but underlining that it will do nothing if young people do not receive proper digital education.
The new Digital Child Protection Act has been the subject of debate in recent days. On Tuesday, the Spanish Council of Ministers approved the preliminary draft for the protection of minors in the Internet environment.
The law requires mobile companies to introduce compulsory parenteral control. The law extends the minimum age for minors to have a profile on social networks from 14 to 16 years and qualifies as a crime “deep fakes”, images, videos or realistic sound manipulations and with the intention of deceiving the user. However, Som Connexió, a Catalan cooperative of telephone consumers, believes that it is a “necessary but insufficient” measure.
According to the psychologist Mercé Botella and founding partner of the cooperative Som Connexió, “parental control tools are of no use if the family does not educate the child”. Minors have learned to prevent parenteral control, so proper digital education is considered essential. It considers the measure as “protection” and not as “censorship” and emphasizes the importance of parents for minors not to access dangerous places and contents.
“Parental control tools are useless if the family does not educate the child”, Mercè Botella, psychologist and founding partner of the cooperative Som Connexió
Som Connexió catalogues the law as a step forward, as it places the focus of protection of minors in telephone companies, rather than placing all responsibility solely on parents. However, they see the need for further measures and although they have increased sufficiently to have a profile on social networks, the cooperative considers that the age limit should be 18 years.
Reflection on current trends
Som Connexió reflected on the negative trends of young people in social networks, emphasizing the need to adopt a series of measures in these customs. They talk about “infinite scroll,” which makes younger consumers lose the notion of time on social media. The continuous notifications and prizes of many games and boxes also require an intervention in the dependency they generate. The cooperative works to raise consumer awareness of the risks of social networks and to promote the most appropriate recommendations to avoid these damages.