Safety tips Safer surfing advice to parents Other tips to share with your children Rating and filtering Advice to parents about filtering Hotlines

Keeping your child safe on-line

Children are often better with computers than their parents. They may learn to use the Internet (go on-line) at school. Remember when they go on-line, children reach the outside world. Unless a filtering system is fitted (to block rude words and pictures for example), children can easily see rude pictures and violence as well as lots of useful and fun sites. And children can talk to strangers, especially through chat rooms. There is a risk, just as in the street, that someone who could do harm will try to approach them. Teach them never to go and meet anyone from the Internet unless you go too. Tell them not to give away their address or school name.

Here are some safety tips to print off and stick to the computer:-

• It's a really bad idea to meet someone from the Internet - unless your parent or carer goes with you, in a public place.
• Remember, people can pretend on-line, no-one can see them.
• So do not give them personal stuff like your email address, home address, school name, photo or password either. They might be someone dangerous!
• If you spot something really rude, or get someone bothering you on-line, it's not your fault. Tell your parents.

Safer surfing advice to parents

• Some ISPs offer safe areas for children or filtering packages.  You can also buy software.  Even so your children need to learn the code for safe use of the net for occasions when they are not protected.
• Make sure your children know never to arrange to meet anyone they come across first on the Internet unless you are happy to go with them - in a public place.
• Teach them to protect personal details - not to send anyone an email with your home address, your telephone number or their school name - or their picture - and never to give them out in chat rooms.  (Emails can get lost or be read by people who might get hold of them - an email is a bit like a postcard.  Chat rooms too are like public places, so you won’t always know for sure who’s looking in or listening.)
• They need to be aware that people on-line are not always who they seem, even people who become pen friends or “keypals”.  People don’t always tell the truth on-line - no one can see them.
• Children often fail to report unpleasantness on the net, so teach them that if someone says or writes something in a chat room or in an email which makes them feel uncomfortable or worried, it’s not their fault so they should tell you and your Internet Service Provider.
• Children need to be especially careful in chat rooms.  (Even if a chat room says it is only for children, there’s no way at the moment to tell if everyone there really is a child.  It might be a grown-up or an older child trying to trick them.)
• See if your Internet Service Provider has any “moderated” chat rooms specially for your children's age: then make sure that your children only use those chat rooms.  A responsible adult is there on-line all the time keeping away anything nasty. But they should not worry! The adult won’t interfere and they probably won’t even know he or she is there unless someone starts behaving badly.
• Teach your children never to respond to nasty or suggestive messages.  They should always tell you if they receive messages that shock or upset them or they don’t understand or if they see rude pictures while on-line.  Please report such problems to your Internet Service Provider.  (There are EU hotlines such as the Internet Watch Foundation (www.iwf.org.uk) which can get this kind of thing stopped.  Tell the IWF if anything like this happens.)

Other advice to share with your children:

It's not a good idea to send anyone your credit card or bank details, (without first checking with your parent or carer. Someone could use these to steal from you.)

Better not give anyone your password to your Internet account (or they could pretend to be you or read your e-mails).

Remember if someone makes you an offer which seems too good to be true, it's probably a trick!

Steer clear of "over 18" sites. (The warnings are there to protect you. Adult sites can sometimes cost a lot more on your phone bill too.)

Don't click on web links in e-mails or open e-mail attachments from people you don't already know and trust. And the same with downloading files from Internet sites. (Don't open them except from people you know and trust. You might be picking up a virus or some other file that could damage or destroy your computer.)

Filtering systems

Filtering systems aim to stop unwanted sites from coming through to your home computer. There are three main types:-

1) Software or Internet Service Provider (ISP) systems which use trigger words or pictures to decide which sites to avoid.

2) Software or ISP systems based on "yes" and "no" lists decided by people or by computer. A "yes" list means you can only visit sites that have been checked and is good for younger children.

3) The ICRA system is available free, thanks to the EU, and Internet Explorer can be configured to recognise this rating system. It relies on sites being tagged as child friendly or not. The idea is good, but so far not enough websites bother to tag which limits the choice of sites. (ICRA stands for Internet Content Rating Association.)

No filtering software can remove the need for parents to keep an eye on what their children see on-line, and it is difficult to find protection against violent sites especially. However, recent testing by Test Achats, partners in the CISA project, co-financed by the EU Internet Action Plan, shows good filters are probably the best way to block at least most 'adult' sites. Here are some facts about filtering systems and how they work and some advice on how to get the best out of what is on offer.

Filtering  systems work in a number of ways

“No” lists: A “No” list of sites that should be avoided is drawn up (containing rude, violent or racist material for example) and if your child clicks on one of these sites, his or her access is blocked. Some programs also work on lists of banned words. Once these words have been found in an address or in the site itself, access to the site is blocked. The problem with “No” lists is that they need to be updated very often.

Real-time filtering: the filter checks words and/or pictures as they are called up and stops a page with any unwanted text or picture from being shown. The problem is that a page can be partially seen before the filter finds the offending word or picture. Also the system can slow down your access to websites.

Site labelling/rating: Owners of sites voluntarily give their web pages a label which shows whether their site contains certain material (eg violence, nudity, gambling, 'adult', etc). The label and categories have been created by the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA). The filter reads these labels and decides whether to allow access, depending on what parents have chosen to allow their children to see.  The problem with this system is that it depends on owners of web sites voluntarily rating their own sites and so far not many sites are rated.

Walled gardens: Lists of web sites that are suitable for young children are drawn up and then access is only allowed to a site which is on the list. This is the safest way to protect small children.

Advice to parents

1. Make sure that, first of all, you talk to your children about how to use the net safely and explain to them the basics for safe surfing (see our advice to parents above).
2. Before you buy or download filtering software, decide what you want it to do. Parents have different views on how they want to protect their children and you need to consider exactly what you want the filter to do. For example, do you want it to block or restrict access to chat rooms or newsgroups, do you want to control the sending and receiving of e-mails to a restricted list of people, do you want to control the amount of time the computer is used or the times of the day or week that it is used, do you want to block information being sent, eg credit card details, address?
3. A lot of filters can be used free of charge for a short period. Bear this in mind when you are looking for a filter and try a few out before you decide on one.
4. Walled gardens are best for young children. Access is only allowed to sites which are suitable for young children. They only see the scaled-down version of the Internet and in general they would not even suspect that the majority of it is kept well hidden.
5. Bear in mind that many of the filtering products are American. This means that the criteria for filtering can be very much influenced by American values, for example very strict about nudity, but not so strict about weapons or violence. This also means that many of the filtering products work mainly in English
6. There can be a big difference in price between filtering products and the more expensive ones are not necessarily better.

Recent tests show that many filters are not effective

Recently consumer organisations in Belgium, Spain, Italy and Portugal carried out tests into 18 filtering software packages currently on the market.

© Test-Achats, (Test-Aankoop), the Belgian consumer organisation which led the project, has said in its magazine nr. 452, March 2002, p.18-22, 'In general, pornographic sites are rather well filtered. At the same time, the programs do not generally filter out inoffensive sites, including those where the name could have caused confusion. On the other hand, weapons sites, violence, hate, racism, drugs or sects passed fairly easily through the filters.'

Test Achats also concluded, 'Of the 18 tested, only three offer an effective filter: McAfee Internet Guard Dog Version 3.13 (2), N2H2 Inc N2H2 for Home (UKE) A 1.0, and WE-WEBCORP.COM We-Blocker 2.0.1 Build 82. Since we know that We-WebCorp.com is free, one can easily guess that it becomes our best buy. This filter can be downloaded from the editor's site.'

Note: Test-Achats' reports are only available to its members.

For more on filtering go to the Which? magazine report "Through the Net".

See also Childnet International