On May 6, in Strasbourg, France, a workshop will be organized by the Council of Europe and its European Audiovisual Observatory, with the goal to explore the guidelines interpreting Human Rights in an online context.

Two sets of guidelines have been published the last October. The documents are the following :

• The Human Rights Guidelines for Online Game Providers (pdf)
• The Human Rights Guidelines for Internet Service Providers (pdf)
  

The first one, more directly related to virtual worlds and virtual reality, was developed by the Council in coordination with the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE), and is aiming to provide a benchmark for online games providers and developers.

While stressing the important positive role that games can play in the lives of individuals, the guidelines underline a concern that games designers and publishers take into account the rights and freedoms, values and dignity of gamers.

Browsing through the document, after the initial information about understanding the role and the impact of online games providers, you can find several paragraphs applying principles on different aspects of online games. Racism, violence, security, privacy of children or freedom of expression, all the burning subjects are there. The council promotes social standards and measures that should help preserve (or attain) high level of respect of Human Rights in online games. The member states (of the European Union) are called to adapt their legislation order to be ready for the new age, that has already came as a matter of fact.

Call it Old Europe, but this is good stuff!

[ via Terra Nova ]