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Child Internet Safety

A major concern for parents and carers nowadays are the potential dangers associated with the use of Internet sites by children.  What is being done by the Government or other organisations to help regulate Internet security and protect children from viewing potentially harmful material online?  Dr Tanya Byron [1], a renowned clinical psychologist (well-known from her role in House of Tiny Tearaways amongst other television series), was commissioned by the Prime Minister in 2007 to head up an independent review of child safety issues, focussing on the Internet and video games.  Her report titled “Safer Children in a Digital World” was published in March 2008 and detailed her findings and the recommendations she proposed following the review.  The Government declared it intended to action all of Dr Byron’s recommendations and has in the first instance published the “Byron Review Action Plan” and set up the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS). 

A press release in September 2008 announced the formation of the new council (UKCCIS) and summarised the key aims of the new Child Internet Safety Strategy in the UK.  According to the UKCCIS website, “The Council brings together some of the biggest names in industry, children’s charities, Government as well as children, young people and parents to work together on making the internet safer for children. The Council reports directly to the Prime Minister and helps to improve regulation and education on internet use, tackling problems of online bullying, safer search features, and violent video games.”

I won’t go into detail about the information contained in the Byron Review here as it is a really lengthy document, but if you are interested in reading more about the report’s findings, you can see a copy of the “Safer Children in a Digital World” document here (you have the option to only download the Executive Summary and other smaller sections of the report if you want as the full document is quite large - over 200 pages!).

One way for website owners to assist parents or carers in making surfing the internet safer for children is to voluntarily rate the content of their site, for example through an organisation like SafeSurf.  Adults can then set their default search engine to child-friendly search engines, like Surfsafely.com, where only those websites rated as having content which is appropriate for children will be returned in the results [2].  You will also note that most websites which have been rated will display the SafeSurf logo on their homepage [3].

It remains to be seen exactly what effect UKCCIS will have on making the Internet a safer place for children to roam (well, surf!) and how quickly the Byron Review Action Plan will be put in place, but I feel quite positive about this new initiative.  Personally, I am a fan of Dr Tanya Byron’s and feel that she will certainly do all that is within her power to ensure that the Government are following through with their promises regarding her report. 

END NOTES
1. For a biography on Dr Tanya Byron see: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/byronreview/biog.shtml
2. For instructions on how to update your Internet Explorer settings to only return SafeSurf approved websites, see this link: http://www.safesurf.com/iesetup/
3. Kidz Things is recognised as a SafeSurf certified website – lookout for the SafeSurf logo which is displayed at the bottom of our pages!

Author: Claire for Kidz Things
May 2009