For the second year running, Google Nigeria, in partnership with the National Film and Videos Censors Board and Home Vida, has organised an interactive programme for Nigerian students, to commemorate Safer Internet Day.

This year’s event, themed “Play Your Part for a Better Internet”, held at Queens College, Lagos. It included a training session and movie screening for 250 students and the presentation of a paper on Safety Online. Discussions were also held with policy makers including the National Film and Video Censors Board; Nigerian Communications Commission; the Lagos State Ministry of Education and the Nigeria Internet Registration Association.

According to  Titi Akinsanmi, Google’s Policy & Government Relations Manager, “a safe internet is undoubtedly good for everyone. We all use the internet, so it is important for government, the organised private sector and civil societies to continue to collaborate to develop and promote strong policies aimed at improving the safety of users while on the Web. As the online safety landscape continues to evolve, key stakeholders need to employ smarter tools that will ensure the online environment remains safe for everyone”.

As part of events commemorating the day, Google announced the launch of the Web Rangers program in Nigeria. The program which currently runs in 10 countries provides workshops which aims to train young people to become ‘online safety ambassadors’ who will help raise awareness of online safety with their peers and in their schools.

“We will be working with the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) and HomeVida, to train over 10,000 Nigerian students via the Web Rangers face-to-face training sessions and via the newly launched online portal at www.saferinternet.org.ng” said Akinsanmi.

Google also announced the launch of its Security Checkup tool which gives Google account owners a quick way to control their security settings, manage recovery phone numbers and control what devices are connected to their accounts. Google account owners who complete the Security Checkup by February 11th will get 2GB of extra Google Drive storage.

Since 2004, Safer Internet Day (SID) has been celebrated on the second day of the second week of the second month of the year. SID seeks to promote safer and more responsible use of online technologies,now including mobile Internet.

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