Georgian MP offers draft to protect children from harmful Internet content

The head of Georgia’s Parliament Healthcare Committee Dimitri Khundadze says that not all websites should not be available to be viewed by children, especially those related to pornography or others which can expose private information.

The lawmaker has already suggested that the Committee to create a group that will produce a draft entitled ‘Safe Internet for Children’.

Khundadze said Internet usage was regulated by the law in a range of countries and was of the utmost importance, as it is directly linked with the future generation’s development and mental health.

“Our aim is to protect children from harmful material on the Internet. In almost all European countries possession and spreading of children pornography is crime.”

“There are special filtration programmes for Internet providers and webpage admins. They must be responsible for the permanent monitoring of materials and deleting any illegal or harmful information before it can reach users.

“Any developed county has regulations ensuring safe Internet content for children and we should follow this example,” Khundadze said.

He concluded that Georgian children are increasingly using computers in comparison to previous generations and the risk of them encountering unsavory content is consequently higher.

Khundadze also said that certain restrictions should also be introduced for elderly Internet users.

However, this will be a difficult issue to efficiently address, as regulating Internet usage in this way will be rather complicated.

The fact that children must not have access to all sites is obvious. However, the Government and Parliament should ensure that their usage be regulated adequately, without enforcing pointles or obscure restrictions.

It will be important for Georgia to follow international examples in this regard but introduce restrictions applicable to modern Georgia.