NetProtect is a project partially funded by the European Commission under the Safer Internet Action Plan and related to the development of rating and filtering systems for Internet content.

The objective of the NetProtect project is to build a prototype of a multi-lingual Internet access filtering tool for parents and teachers that takes into account European multilingual and multicultural issues. The prototype will address deficiencies of current existing filtering solutions, including:

• Inappropriate blocking/filtering techniques, which sometimes exclude legitimate Web sites, or display questionable Web sites.
• Inability to filter non-English Web sites that therefore reduces their application to most Web European sites.
• Lack of transparency which denies the user information as to why some sites can be accessed and not others.

This prototype tool will mainly be used to prevent children from accessing pornography and violent websites, no matter the language (English, French, German, Greek or Spanish) used by the website.

The project is carried out by a consortium led by EADS Matra Systemes & Information (France) and grouping together Red Educativa (Spain), Matra Global Netservices (France), Hypertech (Greece) and Sail Labs (Germany). The project officially started on 1 January 2001. It will end on 1 May 2002. The overall budget of the project is 800 000 and the total effort is 7.1 man-years.