Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence


Memorandum submitted by the Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety

  Please find attached our response to the Byron Review. It mirrors your own inquiries very closely so I have made no changes to it.

You will see that we have made some brief comments about video games, in so far as they intersect with the online environment, otherwise we have focused very largely on the Internet related aspects of your inquiry.

  We would also like to make some more general points.

  Since 2001 the Home Office's Internet Task Force for Child Protection has been the main focal point for addressing how society needs to respond to the safety and other challenges which have arisen, and continue to arise, from the emergence of the Internet as a mass consumer product. The Task Force has become a major element within the UK's self-regulatory regime. In so far as the Task Force brings together the key stakeholders from all parts of central government, industry, law enforcement and the world of child protection, to work out solutions for various problems or concerns, it undoubtedly has performed and continues to perform an extremely valuable function.

  However, from the very outset we have been highly dissatisfied with the level of resources and support which the Government has devoted to the Task Force. It has never had its own budget and it has never had any staff who are solely dedicated to its work and purposes.

  To the extent that the Task Force has been able to spend money on any particular projects eg public internet safety campaigns, it has generally had to wait until the end of the financial year was approaching when civil servants could apply for under spends on other programmes. Planning was therefore impossible.

  On one occasion, when there was a crisis in the Immigration Division of the Home Office, the Task Force's Secretary, its key official, was simply redeployed for several months, and without any prior consultation or discussion with any of the key partners on the Task Force. On other occasions it was also plain that the civil servants' other duties meant that Task Force matters sometimes had to go on the back burner.

  The net result of this lamentable state of affairs is that the work of the Task Force has taken longer than it need to have done or should have done. If there is anything you can do to correct this state of affairs in terms of the recommendations you make at the end of your review, we would be extremely grateful.

  Having made that critical remark about the way things have worked hitherto, please also understand that the principle behind the way that the Task Force has been constituted and does it work is of the utmost importance. We do not know if you will, in the end, recommend any new institutional arrangements for the management of this area of policy but, if you do, we hope you will bear in mind the enormous importance which we and the industry attach both to being able to work together in this way and to being able to engage directly with senior ministers in the Government. Anything which removes or weakens that political link will also weaken the potential impact of the policy.

  Finally, while we can see that there are two distinct aspects to the work that needs to be done in this area, outreach and education on the one hand, and law enforcement and child protection on the other, we believe it is also the case that the practice and experience in each area greatly adds value to the other. For that reason we believe it is to everyone's advantage that very close working relationships are maintained between people working in both areas.

January 2008

Annexe

CHIS RESPONSE TO THE BYRON REVIEW

SECTION ONE: VIDEO GAMES

3.   What are the potential and actual risks to children and young people who engage with video games and how should the Review approach defining and measuring the risks?

  Some parents, as well as some children and young people, have expressed concerns to a number of our organizations about what they see as being the addictive nature of certain video games. Whether or not the use of the word "addiction" is appropriate is open to debate and we prefer the term "excessive use". However there is certainly a great deal of anxiety about excessive use of games and their consequences for example in terms of the way it might deflect a child or young person from their school work, interfere with or inhibit the development of social or interpersonal skills, or distract a child or young person from engaging in forms of physical activity which encourage a healthy lifestyle.

  It also may be the case that excessive use of video games is one of a number of compulsive or obsessive behaviours which develop as a symptom of a deeper, perhaps disguised problem, and it is that underlying problem which needs to be addressed. Video games clearly offer children an escape from reality and there may be factors and vulnerabilities that pre-dispose children to become excessive in their use of video games rather than the video games causing the problem.

  In some countries Governments and other agencies have focused very directly on the issue of "addiction" to video games and they have considered a number of ways to tackle this including encouraging games manufacturers to weight the point scoring or winning opportunities within the game so as to create disincentives to prolonged, unbroken games playing sessions. For example, in this scenario the highest scoring phases of the game or the most winning opportunities should come early in the game cycle and thereafter diminishing returns will set in.

  Linked to this, an increasing number of child safety software packages are being produced, which provide parents, teachers or others with the tools to limit the amount of time that the device can be used for game playing. Some games consoles also can do this but it is not clear to us how well known this sort of feature is, or how easy it is to implement it.

  Finally, some video games also contain an interactive element. A video game may allow players to communicate with each other in one or more ways during the course of the game. This essentially can recreate a chat environment with all of the associated risks of allowing contact with inappropriate individuals, or exposing the child or young person to age inappropriate language or images.

SECTION TWO: THE INTERNET

BENEFITS AND OPPORTUNITIES

14.   What are the benefits of the Internet to a) children and young people, b) society, c) the economy?

  In this submission we have tended to focus on the more negative or problematic aspects of children's engagement with the Internet. This is not because we do not recognise the benefits and opportunities but simply because we are made up of child protection and child welfare organisations and this is our primary focus. At the same time we do think it is important to recognise that the Internet has brought a range of benefits to children.

  The Internet has changed the way we communicate and has opened up new possibilities for us as individuals and as a society. The Internet has been a major spur to economic growth in the UK and increasing amounts of economic activity happen on or through the Internet. A very high proportion of jobs in today's economy require employees to engage with a range of new technologies.

  A growing body of evidence, which will no doubt be referenced by BECTA, is beginning to show how the Internet is helping to advance children's and young people's levels of educational attainment. The Internet is an entirely unprecedented and unrivalled source of information of every kind. It has completely transformed many areas of academic research.

15.   What are the opportunities presented by the Internet?

  We consider that the Internet offers a number of opportunities to children and young people. As children's charities we want to ensure that every child and young person can share in the benefits which the Internet can offer. At present there is still a significant residual group who do not have easy or convenient access to the Internet at home. Increasingly it seems likely that these children will be on the wrong side of the digital divide and their educational and life chances may suffer as a result. For that reason we very much welcome the DfCFS's "Home Access Initiative" which has set itself the ambitious target of ensuring that everyone, of school age has "appropriate"[1] internet access at home. In the short term the Home Access Initiative is likely to focus on reaching out to those children in households where there is currently no internet access at all.[2] We think this is right provided that widening access initiatives are accompanied by the appropriate child safety measures.

  As several studies have shown,[3] online technologies are now a major part of the lives of children and young people. Many adults still tend to think of the new technologies in a very instrumental way and go online to do specific things, for example book travel tickets, or check emails. By contrast for a great many children and young people the Internet is a fully integrated part of their lives, an extension of existing social relationships or the source of new ones, and a way of communicating or staying in touch with a wide social circle.

  The benefits of new technology have been especially marked in relation to children who have disabilities.[4] It has helped to break down barriers to their participation and learning as many deaf and disabled children can obtain information from the Internet that is not otherwise available to them because it is not in a language or a format they can access. Similarly new technologies such as "web cams" enable deaf children to sign BSL and communicate directly with friends or to seek help and advice from a range of sources. It has also however increased their vulnerability to risks as many of these children will be at increased risk of bullying and abuse over the Internet and may be less aware of these risks and dangers.

  The emergence of the Internet has enabled many of our constituent organisations to communicate more effectively with children and young people in order to reach them in the spaces where they are spending time. It has also enabled to children to access much needed advice from a range of sources. For example the NSPCC has used the Internet to target children in their campaigns to get them to speak out about sexual abuse and to provide information and links on popular social networking sites. The NSPCC have also established a text messaging advice service and an online counselling service where children can chat to social workers in real time over the Internet: there4me.com is an interactive site where children can get help. Children may be more likely to use services such as There4me because the Internet allows them to feel safer and more anonymous when they come forward to speak about their problems.

UNDERSTANDING THE POTENTIAL RISKS

16.   What are the potential and actual risks to children and young people who use the Internet and how should the Review approach defining and measuring those risks?

  There are a number of risks that are currently known about including:

Contact

    —  The Internet and other technologies can facilitate children's sexual abuse by persuading and manipulating them into secretive relationships or meetings with abusers or potential abusers. Such sexual abuse may be contact abuse (through a meeting in the real world) or non-contact (through webcams and other means). Chatrooms, social networking sites and other online forums are all places where we know that children may be identified and targeted. Children may personalise their "profile" on popular social networking sites and are then vulnerable to potential abusers who can use this information to contact them. We would recommend speaking further to CEOP about the prevalence and nature of this problem.

    —  Another related issue is children's own "self-victimising behaviour". Recent research by David Finklehor in the US suggests that much of the grooming that we know about takes place in relation to older teenagers who deliberately put themselves at risk.[5] We also know that children experiment sexually online (for example posting semi naked photographs or having sexual conversations with older adults) and thereby encourage inappropriate contact without perhaps realising the extent to which this may put them in danger of exploitation and abuse. This sexualised risk-taking behaviour challenges the traditional models of child protection and needs a sensitive and careful intervention.

Harmful content

    —  Children are known to come across and download age inappropriate content or disturbing and upsetting material. Children may be particularly vulnerable to such content when it is downloaded on mobile phones and circulated between peers with an expectation or pressure that they will look at it. The sheer volume of pornographic material that is in circulation, and the ease of access is a new factor. We do not know how or whether this has affected children in terms of a distortion of their "normal" sexual development. There have been no major research studies on this and it would be difficult methodologically to track the impact of exposure to harmful material. However, the methodological limitations that make it difficult to evidence harm in research clearly does not mean that it does not have a harmful impact on children. We are aware from our direct work with children that they can find the exposure to this material upsetting and confusing.

    —  The Internet provides access to information in an uncontrolled way which can be damaging for children for example to self harm sites that glorify alcohol, drugs, race hatred, or dangerous behaviour. Some children will be able to dismiss this content and information without any problems. However for those more vulnerable children who may be less equipped to interpret and filter information on their own this may have a harmful impact on them by inciting dangerous or anti-social behaviour. For example there has recently been a case where a group of children used a social networking site to facilitate assaults on members of the public.[6]

    —  Children's access to age inappropriate goods and services because of the anonymity of some online payment mechanisms or difficulty in confirming a child's age in an online environment is problematic. Children are known to be able to access alcohol, pornography, weapons and gambling sites as a result.

Cyber-bullying

    —  Children are bullied by other children through new technologies in ways that are disturbing and traumatic.[7] Recent research suggests that one third of children experience so called cyber-bullying.[8] However this may not present a true picture of the scale of bullying because in fact children do not necessarily use or understand the term cyber-bullying or identify it as distinct from other kinds of bullying. According to research by the "Anti-Bullying Alliance" some forms of so called "cyberbullying" can be considered by children and young people to be worse than "traditional" forms of bullying for example when photos are taken and then circulated so that a record of the bullying stays in circulation.[9] In this way a bullying incident can potentially be scaled up and shared to a wider group. There is also the problem that children can be bullied more intensively and relentlessly through new technologies because the victim can always be contacted through mobile phones or other devices. Children are no longer free from the bully when removed from the physical space or presence of the bully themselves. It is difficult to quantify the extent to which bullying through new technologies is or can be worse except through the ways described above.

    —  In relation to bullying there is already a great deal of research evidence to show that it can have a devastating impact on children's social and emotional development. We consider bullying to be a child protection issue as it can lead to self harm and in rare and extreme cases it can lead to suicide. We know that bullying in general is the main reason that children call ChildLine.[10]

Illegal content

    —  It is important to acknowledge that the Internet presents new risks to children in relation to the rise in the mass market of child abuse images. This is both in relation to the children abused to make these images but also in term of the impact on potential perpetrators for whom viewing images may break down barriers to abusing. We know that the impact on children abused to produce images is devastating and the continuing existence of the images of their abuse is likely to impact on their ability to recover and the success of therapeutic treatment. What we know less about is whether and if this feeds into a greater sexual interest in children but Operation Ore revealed an unexpected prevalence and cross section of society in terms of the numbers of perpetrators who viewed the images of child abuse.[11] The NSPCC are currently campaigning to ensure that all Internet Service Providers are blocking access to Child Abuse Images in order to help tackle this growing problem.

    —  Although it is difficult to quantify it seems plausible that the Internet through facilitating a rapidly growing trade in images has not only meant that more children are abused to produce images but also may have sustained a high prevalence and possibly even an increase in sexual interest in children. Research on the links between viewing images and going on to commit contact abuse currently shows a great deal of variation.

    —  We are concerned that currently not enough resources are dedicated to identifying and protecting the children who are abused in images. Currently there are over 20,000 images of children in the Interpol database and only a tiny fraction of these children (some 500) have even been identified and protected. Linked to this is our concern about the current lack of government funding for victim identification work. We consider that CEOP needs core funding in order to perform this task and should not have to rely on support from voluntary organisations like the NSPCC and others.

  How do we understand and classify these risks?

  In general the perception of risk is shaped by the level of media interest rather than research and there is a shortage of up to date relevant and useful research into children's internet use. However we consider the risks of cyber bullying and of sexual abuse to be very serious. We know that bullying has often not featured in conventional approaches or concerns about children's online safety which has tended to centre on preventing sexual abuse. Only recently has the scope and scale of cyber-bullying become clearer as a serious harm to children. It is also only recently that we have become aware of the extent and level of sexual interest in making contact with children with the overview reports from the CEOP centre.[12]

17.   What do a) children and young people and b) parents already know about the potential and actual risks of using the Internet?

  In our experience it tends to be that the majority of parents have a poor understanding of what children are actually doing online and an even poorer understanding of how to protect them in that space. A major new push is needed to reach parents and more could be done to help them such as in the pre-installation of internet safety software.

  In relation to children the research shows great variation in understanding and interpretation of the risks.[13] This is explored in more detail below.

18.   What do a) children and young people and b) parents think and feel about the potential and actual risks of using the Internet?

  Several opinion polls have indicated a high level of parental anxiety about the risks to children and young people found on the Internet.[14] We are keen to highlight here the substantial lack of education for parents and the overwhelming gap between what parents know and what children know in terms of the technical aspects of IT. Recent research from NCH shows that most parents do not know what their children are doing online and this clearly makes it very difficult for them to protect and educate them about the risks.[15] Currently parents that we talk to almost feel overwhelmed by the risks of the Internet and are unclear about an appropriate response, there is both a tendency to fail to acknowledge the risks of the Internet or to overact to the exposure that the Internet provides. Above all parents have a very poor understanding of risks, benefits and opportunities of the Internet.

  We consider that we need a major new effort to reach out to parents to help them improve their own understanding of the online environments which their children inhabit and to show them how they can better support their children in relation to that environment. Schools will have a very important part to play in this but relying solely on schools as the vehicle to reach parents will not be sufficient. Some of the most vulnerable children and parents will have little contact with school.

  In relation to children and young people there is also a need for a continued focus on reaching out to children and young people themselves to teach them about the hazards of the technologies and how to avoid them. Children often understand the technology better than they understand the risks.

  Many children inevitably do understand the risks of the online environment but will take risks as a natural part of growing up and pushing boundaries. Sonia Livingstone's research found that some of the most empowered internet users are those that take the most substantial risks.[16] In this context protection becomes not only about educating all children about risks and consequences of the Internet but also about ensuring that if children do take risks the channels of communication and ways of accessing help remain open. Inevitably some children (particularly older children) will push boundaries online. We need to ensure that they can talk to adults about their experiences when things do wrong, and that adults around them know how to act to protect them. We recommend funding a major public awareness campaign that educates adults and children about internet safety.

HELPING CHILDREN, YOUNG PEOPLE AND PARENTS MANAGE RISKS

19.   What are the range of mechanisms that exist to help children, young people and parents manage the potential or actual risks of engaging with the Internet?

  There are a number of mechanisms that could be used to protect children who are using the Internet. There are several large manufacturers and retailers who aim their products at the domestic market. As part of their sales pitch, they extol the educational and other advantages which having ready access to the Internet at home can bestow on children. Yet at the present time, when they sell an internet enabled device into the domestic market, to a parent or carer, for use by a child, they do not routinely provide any safety related advice about the technology. The current situation relies on the idea that parents will take the initiative in terms of buying and installing appropriate safety software. As Professor Sonia Livingstone's study "UK Children Go Online" and other studies have shown, the reality is very different for most parents. That is why CHIS has advocated that all new internet enabled devices sold into the domestic market should come with child safety software preinstalled and set to the highest level of security, and this is currently the subject of an NSPCC campaign.

  Using technical measures, such as child safety software, is by no means a complete answer to keeping children safe when they go online, but in our view it is an important first step, particularly in protecting younger children. Software needs to go alongside education and awareness of parents and children and it can be a tool that helps parents while they are also encouraged to engage with their children about safety issues. We consider that the point of sale of any internet enabled device should be a learning opportunity for both the child and their parent or carer.

  A key point was made by the recent House of Lords Select Committee in relation to the range of technical measure available to protect children. At paragraph 8.7 the Select Committee asked for a reappraisal of the "end-to-end-principle". In paragraph 8.8 they explain that "The current assumption that end users should be responsible for security is inefficient and unrealistic". We agree with this point and would like to see a review of how it would be possible to strengthen the measures that the industry can take to keep children safe.

  However much we educate children there will still be some whose vulnerability makes them unable to adequately protect themselves against new and emerging risks. There are big gaps in the education of parents and with converging technologies the challenge of protecting children becomes more difficult because the Internet can be accessed from an increasing number of platforms without their parents even realising, let alone engaging or monitoring.

  There is a need to ask for improvement from industry at every level. Pre-installation is one measure but there are a number of other key things. CHIS also considers that there are roles and responsibilities for Internet Service Providers in terms of providing safety settings if they are selling internet connectivity and that ISPs could be better encouraged to police their own sites. We also support the House of Lords Recommendation (8.23) that it would be helpful to develop a kitemark for social networking web sites. The Good Practice Guide being developed within the Home Office Taskforce subgroup on social networking services could provide the basis of a kitemark of this kind. This would help to orientate parents as to the safety of different sites their children spend time and act as an incentive for sites themselves to comply with safety standards above and beyond the guidance.

20.   Are children, young people and parents aware of the tools available and to what extent do they use them?

  See above and also Sonia Livingstone's report: UK Children Go Online. As this report makes clear children and young people are not a homogenous group with regard to their internet use. This research found a significant "digital divide" between those more expert users and those who have a narrow and far less engaging internet experience. There is also inconsistency between children in how and whether they are aware of tools and whether they choose to manage risk posed by the Internet. For example some children are unaware that their profiles are public when they put information on social networking sites.

21.   In what other ways do a) children and young people and b) parents seek to manage the perceived risks of using the Internet and how do they feel about their ability to do so?

  See answers to 17 and 18 above.

22.   How well do these different approaches and mechanisms work?

  The available research seems to suggest that there is a low level of uptake of the technical tools that are on the market, and a low level of knowledge or confidence about how to approach the issues.[17]

23.   What roles do the retail and advertising sectors play in child safety online?

  There have not been any major public facing awareness campaigns in the mass media on the wider issues of child safety on the Internet. So far the only awareness campaigns have been Government or police sponsored campaigns that have focused on the most extreme form of risks such as abusers trying to groom children over the Internet. Given how much the internet industry spend on advertising their products to customers we consider that the absence of an equivalent advertising spend on child safety is regrettable.

24.   What opportunities exist for children, young people and parents to learn about safe, responsible and fulfilling internet use—and do they help?

  There are tools available to children to help them surf the Internet more safely. In particular CEOP manage the excellent thinkuknow.co.uk site. However our experience is that children are not necessarily accessing the safety tools enough and that the subject is not necessarily integrated into a whole school approach or within the PSHE curriculum. We recommend that children and young people are taught about internet safety skills within the Personal and Social Health Education where children learn about acceptable behaviour and staying safe in relationships.

  There are also clear gaps in terms of the skills and capacities of the workforce to educate children about online safety. Recent research shows that the current professional awareness and training in e-safety is low, for example research carried out by Childnet International which involved interviewing 400 teacher trainees at four different initial training institutions showed that currently online safety was not being covered within the teacher training curriculum and there was no statutory or other requirement that it should be so. Yet overwhelmingly both students and tutors alike thought that this was an issue which ought to be covered.[18]

  There is now a provision within the National Curriculum which addresses online safety and related issues for school students. However, it is still left to individual schools to determine whether or not to take up this module and incorporate it into lesson plans. We consider that this should be part of the compulsory or core curriculum at all schools and similarly that it ought to be a compulsory part of the curriculum for all trainee teachers at teacher training institutions. Ways should also be found to ensure that the existing body of practising teachers are equipped with basic training and skills in this area.

  Schools are in a sense the most major and obvious gap. However there are a range of professions which focus on child development or child protection in education, in social services and in the health service, or that work with child sex offenders within the National Offender Management Service. In all these professions we need to ensure that all new entrants and existing practitioners are familiar with the broad spectrum of online risks facing children, and how to avoid or deal with them.

  It is also important to ensure that e-safety is promoted more widely among adults, rather than simply to parents or "professional" audiences. It is important to build awareness and capacity not only among professional groups of staff but also among all workers or practitioners providing services or creating spaces for children and young people. For example adults working in care homes, community groups, play groups and youth clubs can have an informal and yet highly influential impact on children lives. Given the Government's recent commitment to widening access to the Internet to all children, including some of the most excluded and vulnerable, it is important to reach out to all adults in order to ensure that they have at least a basic knowledge of how to protect children online and about how to intervene to help prevent abusive behaviour. Teaching on e-safety should therefore be part of a wider range of courses and training materials for all of those responsible for any kind of care or supervision of children.

25.   What, if anything, needs to be changed in order to help children, young people and parents manage the potential or actual risks of going on line and what are the pros and cons of different approaches?

  The answers above explore the different initiatives that could improve children's safety on the Internet. It is important however to consider the whole political framework within which we work on internet safety issues in the UK. Currently in the UK there is a system of self-regulation of industry whereby we achieve improvements in children's safety in the online environment through successful partnership between industry, government and children's charities.

  Overall we consider that the online environment is balanced in favour of self-regulation. However we do think that there are a number of improvements that need to be made for the current regulatory regime to be satisfactory for the children's charities. The high tech companies need to make child protection issues a greater priority in their overall work and to continue to develop better technical solutions to help keep children safe. One example of this would be to encourage the greater use of age verification technologies. This would help discourage many offenders who otherwise to seek to exploit the apparent anonymity of the Internet, and it would also help sustain various laws which restrict the provision of certain goods and services to minors.

SECTION THREE: GENERAL

27.   What impact will new ways of accessing media have on the questions being considered in this review?

  The emergence of converging technologies changes the way we need to work and the way we think about child protection and safety issues. As increasingly all technologies increasingly speak the same internet enabled language to each other this changes the magnitude of the risks. Points of access to the Internet are multiplying and the Internet is available on phones, on lap tops and on games consoles.

  One particular feature of changing internet use is of course the huge rise (and popularity among children and young people) of social networking and user generated content. These sites bring together into one platform all the pre-existing interactive technologies, in other words chat discussion, photo email messaging and webcams. This accompanies the rise and ubiquity in the UK of mobile phones where children can now access the Internet, including social networking. In the UK 96% of children have access to mobiles by age 11 and more or less a third are using the internet on their mobiles.[19] The average age at which children are being given their first mobile appears to be continuing to fall. In fact mobile phone use has reached almost 100% of children and young people in particular age groups.[20] As we have already noted, the ownership of computers with internet access at home is also high and rising.[21] In a study published by the "End Child Poverty Campaign"[22] it is clear many children now believe that not having a mobile phone or not having access to a computer with internet access at home are becoming modern day signs of poverty. While not every child currently has access to the internet or other enabling digital devices such as a mobile phone, the whole drift of policy looks forward to a time when we are all connected.

  This raises the debate about the changing the nature of children's lives and ways in which children may not think about technology like adults do and they do not seem to distinguish between the online and offline worlds. Increasingly child protection has to keep up with the fact that the internet is seamlessly integrated into children's lives. This has implications for the risks they face and we need consider better the ways we can attempt to protect children. With converging technologies our advice can end up looking a bit "old fashioned" for example a few years a key piece of advice to parents was to "put the computer in the family room"—and this still is important advice especially for young children, but with children increasingly accessing the Internet in multiple different locations this is no longer the most practical piece of advice we can give.

January 2008






1   If a family with four children of school age only has one computer with internet access in the home, and they all need to do their homework on the same day, several practical problems could arise which could create or exacerbate tensions within the family. Back

2   Although the challenges of reaching all sections of society are not to be underestimated. See "The Digital Divide in 2025", Future Foundation, London, 2004. Back

3   See in particular "UK Children Go Online", Professor Sonia Livingstone, LSE. Back

4   BECTA (2006) "What the research says about ICT supporting special educational needs and inclusion" http://www.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/wtrs_ictsupport.pdf Back

5   Finklehor, D. (2007) "Online Sex Crimes Against Juveniles myth and Reality: Testimony of D Finklehor, hearing before US senate", Crimes Against Children Research Centre, Washington: Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Back

6   http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1010/1010104_kids_arrested_for_fixing_up_fights.html Back

7   http://www.childnet-int.org/downloads/cyberbullyingOverview.pdf Back

8   Anti-bullying Alliance Research-do they define cyber bullying. Back

9   An investigation into cyberbullying, its forms, awareness and impact, and the relationship between age and gender in cyberbullying, A Report to the Anti-Bullying Alliance by Peter Smith, Jess Mahdavi, Manuel Carvalho and Neil Tippett Unit for School and Family Studies, Goldsmiths College, University of London. Back

10   There were over 37,000 calls to ChildLine about bullying in 2006-07. Back

11   Operation Ore is a large-scale international police operation that commenced in 1999 intending to indict thousands of users of websites featuring child abuse images. In the United Kingdom, it has led to 7,250 suspects identified, 4,283 homes searched, 3,744 arrests, 1,848 charged, 1,451 convictions, 493 cautioned, 879 investigations underway, 140 children removed from suspected dangerous situations and at least 35 suicides. Back

12   http://www.ceop.gov.uk/pdfs/CEOPStrategicOverview2007.pdf Back

13   Livingstone, S. (2005) "UK Children Go-Online", London: ESRC. Back

14   http://www.ipsos-mori.com/polls/2006/s060117.shtml Back

15   Carr, J. (2006) "Get IT Safe: children, parents and technology survey", www.nch.org.uk Back

16   Livingstone, S. (2005) "UK Children Go-Online" ESCR Research programme. London: LSE www.children-go-online.net Back

17   Livingstone, S. (2005) "UK Children Go-Online", London: ESRC. Back

18   ChildNet (2007) "E-safety: Evaluation of Key Stage 3 Materials for Initial Teacher Education", http://www.childnet-int.org/kia/trainees/ Back

19   Interactive Kids (2005) http://www.childwise.co.uk/images/Interactive%20Kids%2005.ppt Back

20   The Mobile Life Youth Report See http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/CPW060101004<mv2>-<mv-2>2.pdf Back

21   See http://www.evaluation.icttestbed.org.uk/community/2005/findings/3 Back

22   See www.endchildpoverty.org.uk Back


 
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