Half of 10-year-olds, 87 per cent of 13-year-old and 95 per cent of 16-year-old children in the EU have mobile phones, but half of European parents worry mobile phone use might expose their children to sexually and violently explicit images or bullying by other children, according to a survey.

In a statement on April 20 2009, the European Commission called on mobile operators to do more to keep children safe while using mobile phones by putting in place all the measures in the voluntary code of conduct signed by 26 mobile operators in 2007.

A new report published by the GSM Association, the trade body of the mobile phone industry, showed that national self-regulatory codes based on the framework agreement brokered by the European Commission now exist in 22 EU member states, 90 per cent of them in line with the 2007 agreement, and 80 per cent of operators have put in place measures to control child access to adult content.

"The new report of the mobile phone industry association shows that mobile operators have started to take seriously their responsibilities to keep children safe when using phones," EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding said.

"However, I expect that national codes will be signed very soon now in the four countries where they do not exist yet – this is the case in Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, and Luxembourg – and I also expect the Belgian code to be significantly revised.

"Protection of minors is not a luxury, but indispensable if new communication technologies want to be accepted in our European societies," she said.

Mobile operators still needed to be more ambitious to make measures for the purpose of protecting minors more effective in all European countries, and also to make content classification more transparent.

The 12 operators that still were providing adult content without any access control must fix this situation, Reding said.

"I reserve the right to come back to this situation in September this year to see whether further action needs to be taken," she said.

The report shows how mobile operators have followed up on the four areas of action identified in the 2007 code: 80 per cent of operators have put in place measures to control children's access to adult content, but only 41 per cent of operators said that they actively monitor and review the effectiveness of their access control systems.

More than 65 per cent of the signatories produce educational material or run awareness campaigns about safer mobile use. However, 16 per cent of signatories have not planned any awareness activities.

Eighty per cent of operators classify commercial content in at least two categories: "adult content" and "other", but there is little evidence that specific classification has been agreed at national level as agreed in 2007, the report said.

Most mobile operators work closely with national law enforcement bodies to report illegal content on mobile phones, but the actions vary considerably between countries because of different national laws and reporting mechanisms, according to the report.