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New controls on e-safety
Julie Nightingale, Reporter
Children using the Internet will be better educated and better protected from risk in future under government plans to introduce a raft of new controls on e-safety
The measures, outlined in the Government-commissioned Byron Review, include:
establishing a UK Council for Child Internet Safety made up of representatives from government, charities, industry, young people and parents and reporting to the Prime Minister
creation of a one-stop shop- on e-safety to enable parents to find advice and guidance in one place plus better access to parental control software
a major publicity campaign highlighting e-safety issues and new codes of practice for industry on areas such as how they provide access to content posted online by users and how advertising is regulated
a new classification system for video games.
For schools, key recommendations include a drive to incorporate e-safety into subjects across the curriculum, rather than only in ICT. In future, e-safety could also be added to Ofsted inspection criteria if schools are failing to address it adequately.
The review is the product of an investigation by Dr Tanya Byron, a child psychologist and the presenter of TV programmes examining child behaviour. It examined evidence from education, industry, charities and academics on the impact the internet and video games can have on young people.
It was commissioned from Byron by Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in response to rising concern among parents and wider society about safety online and the exposure of children to violent or other inappropriate content.
The Government has pledged to carry out Byron’s recommendations in full.
Speaking at the review launch, Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, said: “There is a huge amount of work for us to do. The UK Council will start work immediately and we will get on with discussions with industry around the different self-regulatory measures proposed in the report.”
A key issue is helping parents to understand what they can do to make sure their children are safe, he added.
“We hadn’t realised that quite often, the providers of services like YouTube give information to parents about what is safe and what age children should be using them but parents don’t always know that; I think often parents feel passive because they haven’t themselves experienced it and therefore don’t quite know what to do.
“In all our discussions parents have said give us information, give us in things we can understand and ways we can make sure our children feel safe but also have fun.
I think people will look back and see this as a very important day.”
Dr Byron said the internet and video games offered were now part of growing up for children and offered “unprecedented opportunities to learn, develop and have fun.”
She added: “However, with new opportunities come potential risks. My recommendations will help children and young people make the most of what all digital and interactive technologies can offer, while enabling them and their parents to navigate all these new media waters safely and with the knowledge that more is being done by government and the internet and video game industries to help and support them.”
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