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Child Safety Online
Did you know? - Only 25% of children solicited by a predator on the internet told their parents about it?
Did you know? - 75% of children are willing to share personal information online about themselves and their family in exchange for goods and services.
Did you know? - 77% of the targets for online preditors were age 14 or older. Another 22% were users ages 10 to 13.
Did you know? - 75 percent of the solicited youth were not troubled, 10 percent did not use chat rooms and 9 percent did not talk to strangers.
Did you know? - Only 1/3 of the households with Internet access are proactively protecting their children!
Did you know? - One in five U.S. teenagers who regularly log on to the Internet say they have received an unwanted sexual solicitation via the Web. Solicitations were defined as requests to engage in sexual activities or sexual talk, or to give personal sexual information.
Did you know? - A survey from UK online centres has found that while three-quarters of mums and dads knew their children were regular internet-users, half of them didn't think their own internet or IT skills were good enough to supervise or assist with surfing. Topping the list of concerns were internet predators, inappropriate images and fraudsters. Other worries included cyber-bullying and the information children were sharing through social networking sites.
Help & Advice
Chat rooms have long been a favourite pastime on the internet for kids. They can be great fun and the children can make some great new friends online. The problem with chat rooms is that they are generally anonymous, so the person that they are chatting to may not be who they say they are.
Unless you supervise your children whenever they are in a chat room then controlling who they chat too can be a problem, although, there are some general guidelines that your children can follow to make their online chatting safer:
- Stay anonymous, they should use a nickname while online, and never reveal their real name.
- Never tell anyone where they live, not even if they have been chatting to the person for years.
- Never tell anyone what school they go to.
- Never give out phone numbers.
- Never agree to meet someone without a parent present, and ensure the person they are going to meet knows a parent will be accompanying them.
- Tell an adult if anything strange happens or anything is said to them that makes them feel uncomfortable.
- Introduce yourself in the chat room to their online friends, especially if your child wants to meet them.
Although these guidelines may seem fairly obvious, by ensuring that your children follow them they can help remove some of the dangers.
Online Help & Advice
An excellent website at www.thinkuknow.co.uk is a must-visit site for parents, carers, teachers and young people especially, where you can find the latest information on the sites they like to visit, mobiles and new technology.
Find out what's good, what's not and what you can do about it. If you look after young people there's an area for you too with resources you can use in the classroom, at home or just to get with it. Most importantly, there's also a place which anyone can use to report if they feel uncomfortable or worried about someone they are chatting to online.
All the information on the website is brought to you by the team at the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre.
- Know what your children are doing online and who they are talking to. Ask them to teach you to use any applications you have never used.
- Help your children to understand that they should never give out personal details to online friends - personal information includes their messenger id, email address, mobile number and any pictures of themselves, their family or friends - if your child publishes a picture or video online - anyone can change it or share it.
- If your child receives spam / junk email & texts, remind them never to believe them, reply to them or use them.
- It's not a good idea for your child to open files that are from people they don't know. They won't know what they contain - it could be a virus, or worse - an inappropriate image or film.
- Help your child to understand that some people lie online and that therefore it's better to keep online mates online. They should never meet up with any strangers without an adult they trust.
- Always keep communication open for a child to know that it's never too late to tell someone if something makes them feel uncomfortable.
- Teach young people how to block someone online and report them if they feel uncomfortable.
Get Safe Online
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Tactical Panda is a supporter of the Get Safe Online campaign. Get Safe Online is an excellent website designed to help you and your family use your computer and the internet safely with useful advice, tips and help with a very wide range of online safety issue.
Get Safe Online is the UK's national internet security awareness campaign for the general public, micro and small businesses. The campaign is a joint initiative between HM government, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), and private sector sponsors from the worlds of technology, retail and finance. The campaign website www.getsafeonline.org is the definitive source of free, unbiased, current information and advice about how to keep safe and secure online. |
Childnet International
Childnet International's mission is to work in partnership with others around the world to help make the Internet a great and safe place for children.
In all its work Childnet seeks to take a balanced approach. On their website you can read about the way they have sought to promote the positive and highlight the creative and inspiring ways children and young people are using the medium for good. You can also read about the ways they have responded to the negative aspects and dangers for children.
Childnet works in 3 main areas of Access, Awareness, Protection & Policy.
- Access and promoting quality content - Helping children and young people to use the net constructively, showcase quality content and enable others to use our resources and develop new projects.
- Awareness and advice - Helping children and young people acquire new 'net literacy' skills and giving advice to industry, organisations, parents, teachers and carers about Internet and mobile safety.
- Protection and policy - Working with others to help protect children from being exploited in the online environments provided by new technologies as well as seeking to initiate and respond to policy changes.
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For more help, advice and guidance, please visit the Childnet website by clicking here, or the banner. |
For more local information, help and advice about how you can protect your child on the internet, please contact us at any time by clicking here.