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Child Safety on the Internet

Are you endangering children with your internet practices? While there is a wealth of knowledge available to the general public on Internet safety, there is little information available to people who work in new media. NMK believes it's time the industry began to inform itself of the issues involving child safety.

There’s a wealth of information on the Internet for concerned parents on the subject of child safety on community websites, ranging from thinkuknow.co.uk offering consumer-friendly advice to families to NCH IT OK (www.nch.org.uk/itok) and their Net Smart rules for safe chatting. While Government spending to promote safe internet guidelines to the UK’s 5 million strong child audience is to be applauded, the information available for people who work on the Internet is limited, despite the duty of care the digital industries have for their young audiences. But how does a company apply these duties? And what level of protection should each website take? 

In a bid to provide some much needed clarity, NMK is running a Child Safety on the Internet conference on July 13. This will provide a forum for Internet professionals to discuss how to protect not only the children who use the websites, but also to discuss the Government’s plans for ensuring safety on community websites.

The Home Office’s Internet Task Force for Child Protection on the Internet is currently producing the E-crime Strategy, which will focus on a best practice framework for the Internet industry. The report, which was due to be published Spring 2004 is delayed, yet it is imperative that the E-crime Strategy is produced, and soon

A survey of May 16 2004 conducted by the Internet Services Providers’ Association (ISPA) found that fewer than one third of Internet users do not recognize that responsibility for unlawful content on the Internet lies with the person who put it there rather than with the ISP on which it is placed, despite the E-Commerce Regulations of 2002 stating otherwise.

This in turn raises the question of who is responsible for the safety of children using community websites. Both parents and Internet workers are confused about where the responsibility lies: Is it the responsibility of the child, that of the parents, that of the website, or that of the government?

Ewan MacLeod, CEO of Neo One, has worked alongside many community-led websites aimed at the young such as Worldpop.com. He states 'there’s a perception amongst website owners that disclaimers will protect the content provider. From a legal perspective that is often the case. Many company lawyers believe that a child using their website - which is not strictly aimed at children, but obviously attracts them - is committing fraud. Clarity is needed.'

The ISPA believes that censorship and the safety of children ultimately should be the responsibility of the Government and NMK agrees, putting forward the point that only well funded websites have the resources to be able to ensure they work to guidelines regarding child safety.

Disney is a case in point. Historically the organization has not had chat rooms or message boards and has therefore restricted the ability of guests to communicate with each other. The launch of Toontown Online (www.disney.co.uk/toontown) has enabled children to interact in a space that is safe due to its innovations: SpeedChat and Secret Friends. The former is a menu-based tool which lets players choose from pre-written phrases to form sentences, the latter enables two players who know each other outside of the game to chat freely via a time-sensitive secret.

Darren Cockburn, Director of Strategy and Head of Broadband Consumer Products, Walt Disney Internet Group, Europe says: 'We believe that the tools within Toontown Online strike a good balance between allowing communication and protecting children.'

However, the more complicated the website, the more likely it is to drive children to underground chat facilities. Online Community professionals broadly believe that the Government should provide Moderation services to communities where children are likely to be, especially if the community has limited resources.

Rob Marcus, MD of Chat Moderators, believes the Human Moderation process of chat rooms not only educates children in the dangers of online communities, but also protects them. Human Moderation comes at more than the price of the cost of outsourcing, however. 'Human Moderators need to be carefully screened, well trained and ideally, supervised,' says Marcus. 'After all, what better job for a child abuser to get than that of a Moderator?'

In the aligned world of Chatterbot technology, the A.I. technology most likely to assist with online safety, the market is yet to really engage.  Phil Hall, Founder of Elzware Limited, advises that 'The development of our pattern matching application, which can monitor these kinds of conversations in a cheap and effective way, is currently being reviewed and a development is expected in due course.'

Only 29 per cent of respondents of the ISPA survey correctly recognised the Government or judiciary as the legitimate authorities to make decisions about the legal status of online content. Yet as the Government continually does not produce best practice for the Internet industry, it is essential that the Internet industry works together towards a realistic initiative that ensures that children can interact both freely and safely online. Ewan MacLeod sums it up: 'Parents and children are being educated about internet dangers; it's time the industry educated itself.'

NMK held a Child Safety conference on July 13 to explore these issues:

www.nmk.co.uk/event/2004/07/13/child-safety-conference

About the authors: This article was written by NMK and Ewan MacLeod.