IWF response to Child Safety Digital Manifesto
A manifesto released today from CHIS (Children's Charities Coalition for Internet Safety) has outlined recommendations around strategic policy development on internet safety for children in the UK.
This review comes on the back of the Home Office's Task Force for the Protection of Children on the Internet, which was created in 2001 and incorporates many CHIS representatives.
Whilst some of the issues raised in the manifesto are already being discussed throughout various Government and non-Governmental agencies in the UK, CHIS felt these matters would benefit from being pushed into a wider public arena as they cover such a broad technological phenomenon.
The Internet Watch Foundation is pleased to see these recommendations relating to specific internet policies and believes a multi-agency approach is the only way forward to cultivate and sustain comprehensive and realistic solutions.
There is currently a relatively high awareness of internet issues in the UK and there are many significant achievements to date which include: Codes of Practice applied to services provided by the internet and mobile industries, the Sex Offences Act 2003 which incorporates a new 'grooming' offence, a vast reduction of the amount of illegal content hosted in the UK, now less than 1% and an improved awareness and understanding around some of the key risks and danger areas of the net
However, there are many current and emerging areas which require consistent review, as advances in internet technologies, fixed and mobile, continue to move forward.
"The manifesto is welcomed as an overview of some central areas which need addressing as child safety on the net is of course, a priority. As part of this, some serious debate is needed around the global nature of the internet and online content. We need to look at international co-operation, policy and laws and how they could be added to the political agenda to ensure protection for all internet consumers in the UK.
For example, currently, 99% of illegal child abuse images originate from overseas, but a significant number are still available to view in the UK as current legislation governs online content from country of source.
These are not problems which can be tackled by a single organisation, Government or even a single country and we would like to see these types of issues on the agenda for the UK and G8 next year."
Fay MacDonald, Communications Co-ordinator, IWF
Below is a summary of the recommendations from the Manifesto.
Government and parliament
1. The task force should have its own budget and a dedicated secretariat.
2. Steps should be taken to ensure that, across government, there is a shared understanding of the risks to children online.
3. The Home Office, DfES and DOH, in particular, urgently need to formulate an agreed view and response to abuse via the new technologies. New forms of multidisciplinary and multi-agency ways of working need to be developed around online abuse and crimes against children.
4. In the wider public interest, the government should develop its own independent sources of knowledge of the internet and related
technologies.
5. The government must find ways to develop the capacity of NGOs to participate more fully in the work of the task force.
6. A cyber equivalent of the Indecent Displays Act 1981 should be made law and consideration should be given to placing new duties on web publishers to rate their online content.
7. In relation to children and young people, the data protection laws need to be overhauled to take account of the new realities of
cyberspace.
8. New ways should be found to ensure that laws relating to the provision of age restricted goods or services are not flouted in cyberspace.
9. The government should investigate the possibility of using tax incentives to encourage technology companies, computer
manufacturers and retailers to develop new contributions to online child safety.
10. A number of specific legal reforms need urgent consideration (see main report).
11. The DfES needs to step up its outreach to parents to help them help their children stay safe when they use the internet at home.
12. Membership of the task force should be kept under review to ensure that all relevant interests are always represented.
Policing
13. The National Policing Plan needs to be amended to make child protection a key national target. The resources devoted to this
work generally need to be reappraised in the light of its new priority status, and especially in relation to its internet dimension.
14. A new or enhanced national operational police resource is needed to deal with internet crimes against children. This or a related body ought also to be able to deal with enquiries from the public and provide advice, information or support, or be able to direct people to other appropriate sources.
15. We need UK policing to improve the number of child victims it identifies and rescues as part of or following online operations.
16. New ways need to be found to crack down on overseas cyber crime havens. More generally the UK needs to strengthen its contribution to the different international bodies working on child protection online.
17. New ways must be found to enable the police to intervene effectively and in a timely manner in a range of policy and technical
forums.
Internet and mobile phone industries
18. An effective public-domain child protection package should be widely available.
19. All computer manufacturers and retailers active in the domestic market should, on all new machines they sell, pre-install child protection software set to a high level of security.
20. Software houses need to devote resources to helping parents and the law enforcement community defeat a number of pressing
technical challenges such as the abuse of peer2peer software, the abuse of anonymity and the abuse of encryption.
21. The provision of passive location services through mobile phones to the mass consumer market raises a number of issues
that need to be addressed, eg could the use of such services amount to a breach of an access order following a divorce or other
family breakdown?
22. Clarification is needed of the civil liability of ISPs and other online service providers for legal minors who use their networks.
Child welfare system
23. More research is needed into the longer term effects of online child abuse, into new forms of treatment and into the effects of the long term exposure of children and young people to a range of material now readily available through the internet and related
technologies.
24. A reliable means of risk-assessing people found guilty of child pornography-related offences needs urgently to be developed.
See 'Futher Media' on the top right of this page to access the full report and summary PDFs
Click here for the CHIS Press Release
Created: Mon, November 1st, 2004 | Last Modified: Wed, August 9th, 2006
