Child safety tsar demands faster action

The UK may be a world leader when it comes to internet safety – but it needs to do more - that was today’s verdict from Professor Tanya Byron – author of the government’s current policy on the internet, Safer Children in a Digital World. Byron confirmed that the UK is the world leader in child internet safety but advised that …

[Anonymous Coward]

Go show it to Facebook

......They might respect CEOP better

[Ihre Papiere Bitte!!]

So let's just check here....

Report sponsored by the UK government says that the UK leads the world in (report subject)?

Wow. I didn't expect that one.

I do like how on the one hand they say:

"UKCCIS should work with mobile phone manufacturers to improve parental controls on mobile phones and consider the need for minimum standards for parental controls on games consoles. This should include more support for parents on how they can use and access these controls."

and this is followed immediately by:

"...the focus of her report is on empowering children and young people to take control of how they use digital technology responsibly, rather than simply blocking what they can access."

Doublethink in action....!

[Anonymous Coward]

A safe place?

Can somebody explain to me exactly why the Internet is supposed to be a safe place for children? As a society, we have no problem with instituting adult-only rules (or near-adult) for various environments. For example, we don't let kids play behind the steering wheel of a car. We don't let them play with pints of beer down the pub. We don't let them play at lapdancing clubs. So why are we supposed to let them on the Internet? The real motive of course is that governments the world over feel very threatened by the prospect of people being able to exchange ideas freely, and are trying their damndest to put the genie back in the bottle. Doing something "for the sake of the children" has always been a good excuse for clamping down on liberty.

Full disclosure - I've had 2 kids of my own, and they were never allowed to use the Internet unsupervised.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I'd always though the same

The internet is equivalent to the 'big wide world' You wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) let your children go off on their own unsupervised, so why would you let them use the internet unsupervised. I believe the Government's apporach to this is to say, 'we'll supervise your children for you', which has the obvious knock-on effect that because it is not possible with 100% confidence to identify who is and is not a child on the internet, then the government ends up 'supervising' everyone.

We see this spilling over into real life too, with such things as CCTV, extreme porn laws, etc. Thus has it always been; those in power use emotive arguments to draw more power to themselves. Won't somebody think about those 'thinking of the children'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Safeguarding WiFi

Well if the MandyBill gets through Parliament that'll be solved. There won't be a public WiFi network in the country once companies realise they'll be liable for everything passing over their airwaves.

[Anonymous Coward]

But....

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/29/social_networking_survey/

"One in four underage children have profiles on social networking sites, according to research by media regulator Ofcom. The survey found that 25 per cent of eight to 12-year-olds surveyed have a social networking profile.

Children under 13 are not allowed to have a profile on the major platforms, including Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, under those sites' terms of use."

"Overall, the focus of her report is on empowering children and young people to take control of how they use digital technology responsibly, rather than simply blocking what they can access."

Well I think that the children and young people are quite happy with the control of how they use digital technology.

[Mark York 3]

I'm sorry I'll Read That Again!!

Initially I read that as child safety taser.

Mind you my kids could do with a tasering every now & again.

[Adrian Challinor]

I'm sorry I'll Read That Again!!

Exactly my first reading as well, and there I was thinking it was a Reg Hardware trial review.

Mine's the one with "Tasers: How to turn a profit" in the pocket.

[John Smith 19]

OMG Parent urges parents to actively parent their children

And not think of the internet as some kind of electronic babysitter.

AC@05:21

"Full disclosure - I've had 2 kids of my own, and they were never allowed to use the Internet unsupervised."

Now that sounds like a sensible, non hysterical, approach. Time consuming, but who said raising children was easy.

Respect.

[Elmer Phud]

Who?

""In the two years since Professor Byron’s original review, we have set up the UKCCIS, created a new digital code for parents, and published a groundbreaking internet safety strategy. This shows we are world leaders in tackling child internet safety."

This shows absolutely bugger all other than they've been busy patting themselves on the back.

I've seen nothing in my local school about this, heard nothing from parents and kids.

They don't know it exists.

I bet the UKCCIS doesn't even guess at the huge number of under 13yr olds on Facebook etc. etc.

Huge, enormous fail.

"Killed the Czar and his Ministers; Anastasia screamed in vain"

[Ihre Papiere Bitte!!]

Huh?

"Killed the Czar and his Ministers; Anastasia screamed in vain"

What on earth does Sympathy For The Devil have to do with anything??

Agree with everything else you said. Just the last sentence really threw me, and now I have the song running round and round my head, which, considering how badly I sing, is starting to tick off my co-workers.

*I was around when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain...."

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the should have a friendly mascot

Something like, I dunno, a big brown teddy bear.

Maybe for extra special sites with "panic buttons" on each page and an IM link to CEOP they would be eligible to display a special badge. A sort of "Seal of Approval" if you like.

Just a thought.