A Safer Internet?

February 29th, 2008 Posted in SEO

A recent announcement from the European Commission has stated that it will be investing £42 million in an attempt to make the internet a safer place for younger users. On the top of the list are ways in which children can be protected from inappropriate content and cyber-bullying. The funding will also attempt to understand the ways in which children access the internet, whether this is through computers or mobile devices such as mobile phones.

The scheme will attempt to inform school teachers and parents about the online activities of children. The scheme will be building on the work of a similar scheme launched in 2000. The original scheme focussed upon producing literature for schools to distribute to their pupils, the new scheme will increase on this work while laying down more definite objectives.

These objectives include the formulation of ‘contact points’ based nationally for children to report any instances of abuse or illegal conduct. These contact points will also take reports of grooming efforts and provide a database of information for parents and children. This database will most probably be developed in a forum format. Experts at Harvard whilst not in conjunction with the EC, are looking into ways in which children can avoid unwanted attention whilst accessing the internet. The eventual hope of this study is produce guidelines for web developers and children on how to make the internet safer.

There is little debate that something needs to be done over child safety online, currently the problem of grooming is growing and combating this will take a combined effort from governments and other legislative bodies. If the right approach can be developed, the internet should become a far safer place for children and other younger users.