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Do you know where your kids are surfing?

25 Jul 2008
Topics: Internet safety, PAS 74, Kitemark®

John Coutts explains how a new initiative by Ofcom and the Home Office, in association with BSI, is helping to safeguard children on the net.

Childhood has changed dramatically over the last 20 years and some argue that today's children enjoy less freedom than ever before. For worried parents, the world beyond the front door now seems just a bit too risky. Anxieties about everything from road accidents to "stranger danger" mean that children are increasingly being kept indoors.

But it's becoming clear that there are risks at home too and, despite its multitude of benefits, content encountered via the net can be one of them. The risk of children encountering potentially harmful or inappropriate content online is now a worry for many parents. With children spending less time outside and more time indoors using computers, the chances of them encountering inappropriate material are greater than ever.

Improving child safety online is the role of a new Kitemark scheme developed by BSI. Launched by the Home Secretary in April 2008, the Kitemark for Child Safety Online and its supporting guidance set the standard for internet filtering software for internet browsing packages used on home computers. Only products that pass a series of rigorous independent tests - including the ability to restrict access to websites featuring pornography, racism and violence - will be awarded the Kitemark to demonstrate conformity.

Safety net

Unveiling BSI's Kitemark scheme, the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: "The launch of this new guidance and the BSI Kitemark alongside our plans to crack down on sex offenders on the web, sends a clear message that keeping children safe is a priority for us all."

Eight out of ten children now have access to the internet at home. But research by Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator, indicates that less than half of all parents use internet safety software to help protect their children. The Kitemark scheme is the first of its sort, and will allow parents to choose internet browsing software that has been proven independently to be effective. The first Kitemark products are expected to be available later this year.

Concerns about the risks posed by the online world - and particularly the risks for children - have grown in recent years. The need for concerted action was recognized back in 2001 with the formation of the Home Secretary's Taskforce on Child Protection on the Internet, which brought together government, online technology providers, law enforcement and child protection experts.

But the internet is evolving fast - and, as in any environment, so are the potential risks that go with it. In September 2007, the government commissioned Dr Tanya Byron, a consultant clinical psychologist specialising in child and adolescent mental health, to carry out an independent review of the risks children face online and through video games.

One of the key issues identified in the Byron Review is the increasing gulf between computer-savvy children and their parents and carers, many of whom are still struggling to get to grips with the web.

"The digital technological divide is key to the arguments that I put forward in my review," says Dr Byron. "We have this very interesting time in the development of technology where children not only know more about the technology and understand it better, using it more creatively and widely, but are also creating an awful lot of the content that drives these technologies.

"Adults are trying to manage behaviour around risk. Offline, it's fine, because we grew up with the offline world and we understand how the real world works. But online, there is a real issue," believes Dr Byron.

"I wouldn't want to say that there is moral panic to the degree that it then trivialises the real risks online for children and young people, but I think it's important also to put it into the context of any new technology. We can look back in history and see this even when Caxton first developed the printing press: developments like this were met with real panic and the fear that there would somehow be moral contagion. What I found in my review was how polarized the debate has become when you start to talk about these new technologies," she says.

Cutting through the myths, misunderstandings, hype - and sometimes apathy - that surround online risks is a very real problem for those charged with keeping children and young people safe. And the polarization is evident. Banning children from the internet is probably not a solution. But neither is allowing them free rein to do what they like. It's confusing for many parents and the worry is understandable.

Risk factor

"It's certainly an issue which parents feel very anxious about," believes John Carr, secretary of the Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety. "Polling is being done all the time by the internet companies, the mobile phone companies, by independent academics, by newspapers - and anxieties about children being exposed to risks online are featured very high up the scale."

But what are the risks? Carr identifies three principle areas of concern: "There's exposure to illegal or age inappropriate content, exposure to contacts which are either again illegal or are inappropriate - I'm thinking here about paedophiles grooming children, or cyber bullying. Then there's commerce, situations where children are exposed to scams of one kind or another, or access sites where things are for sale that are not appropriate to children according to their age," he says.

"Take some of the hard facts," says Carr. "In Operation Ore, 7,200 men in the UK were identified as having bought child pornography off a single internet website, and there were 300,000 names altogether. In 1997, an investigation for the government on child abuse described this as being a cottage industry. Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the USA, recently described child pornography on the internet as a multi-billion dollar industry. There's been a phenomenal increase."

With the number of pornography websites now measured in the hundreds of thousands, there's no shortage of explicit content online. Carr points to a recent investigation of internet use among children aged nine to 19 years old [UK Children Go Online published by the London School of Economics in 2006], which states that pornography is a "commonplace but often unwelcome experience for children and young people". More than 20 per cent of the nine year old children surveyed claim to have seen pornography online.

"There is a problem and it's one that concerns parents and schools greatly," says Carr.

Online pornography is as old as the net, and most parents and carers are aware of the need to protect young children from stumbling across pornography and violence - or to restrict their ability to seek it out deliberately as they get older. What's less well understood is the way that the net has been changing, particularly over the last five years. Web 2.0, characterized by user-generated content and interactivity, presents a whole new set of challenges and risks.

"Kids are on social networking sites - which are a brilliant way for kids to explore, create and communicate - but few parents are chatting with them about privacy settings, because they don't understand it," observes Dr Byron. "Children don't understand when they put up photos of themselves that unless they put their settings to ?privacy', anybody can see them. That's when you see the risks start to crank up."

The right tools

Providing people with the tools to protect themselves - and that includes browsing software with BSI Kitemark assurance - is one of the cornerstones of the government's strategy on protecting children online. Regulating material on the net is next to impossible and traditional approaches that worked for broadcasting don't work in the online world.

For communications regulator Ofcom, which works to promote people's understanding of media and services, this presents new challenges and demands a new type of approach. In tandem with the Home Office, Ofcom initiated a discussion with BSI Product Services about setting up a Kitemark scheme, after it became clear that existing internet filtering software was not being used as extensively, or as effectively, as it could be.

"Ofcom does not have any statutory responsibilities for content delivered over the internet," explains Robin Blake, Head of Media Literacy at Ofcom. "What we do have is a duty to promote media literacy. If you imagine communications as a pipe, traditionally we dealt with the question about what goes into the pipe at one end, being appropriate for the audience, accurate and balanced - that's the broadcasting pipe. But in the internet space, regulators no longer have any influence over what goes in at one end of the pipe, so we've got to deal with what's at the other end of the pipe - and that's human beings. We need to give them the skills, knowledge, understanding and tools to enable them to take control of, and responsibility for what they're seeing."

BSI's Kitemark scheme and the minimum performance requirements needed to obtain it, which are set out in PAS 74:2008 Internet safety, are an integral part of this effort. The Kitemark can be applied to any type of software that can access the internet. In addition to browsers on home computers, the Kitemark is also applicable to games console software, which is increasingly used across the web, as well as internet service providers' browsing facilities.

"What it's looking to do is help protect children when they're surfing the net, to make sure that they're not going to inadvertently come across any adult content, any gratuitous violence, sex and material of that nature," says Ian Harper, sales and marketing director of BSI Product Services. "It's to make sure that there's a robust validation of the screening facilities offered in browsing software."

BSI's vetting programme for the Kitemark is rigorous. Companies seeking to display it on their products must first submit their software for scrutiny and testing by independent experts. To prove that software offers effective filtration, it's tested against a list of websites known to contain explicit content. This list is drawn up by the Home Office and Ofcom, and it's kept secret. In order to continue displaying the Kitemark on software, manufacturers must re-submit their products for regular testing. The initial validation process is expected to take around eight weeks.

"The Kitemark not only looks at the effectiveness of the software, but also the ease with which it can be installed, the completeness of the user information, the ability to provide online support and the ability for a parent to be able to put a security password in to prevent things being changed," says Harper. "It's all-encompassing."

With children spending increasing amounts of time indoors - and online - the need for solutions of this sort has never been greater. And there's anecdotal evidence to support the theory that if children aren't allowed to take risks in the real world, they'll take them on the net instead.

"We're bubble-wrapping our children. But children have a developmental imperative to take risks, to socialise and to communicate. If they can't do that outside, they're going to go online and do it," warns Dr Byron.

"This Kitemark scheme is great. It's the first step towards actually thinking strategically about safety and being able to talk to children about it. I see this as the first part of a process of changing a mindset. It's actually pushing adults into a contemplation stage where they can then start to think with their children. For me, this is a good thing," concludes Dr Byron. "We just have to be careful that we don't view it as a magic bullet."

For more information: www.bsigroup.com/july08childsafety

Business Standards © 2008. Editorial produced by Caspian Publishing in association with the British Standards Institution. Editorial opinions expressed on are not necessarily those of BSI Group or Caspian Publishing. Neither Caspian Publishing nor BSI Group accept responsibility for advertising or editorial content, nor for that appearing on linked third-party websites. Reproduction in whole or in part is forbidden without written permission from BSI Group or Caspian Publishing.

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