Protecting Children Online: The Byron Review
Ted Hastings
On 27th March the Department for Children, Schools and Families launched a report entitled "Safer Children in a Digital World" by Dr Tanya Byron, the well-known TV psychologist and mother of two. The report was commissioned by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in September 2007. It puts forward a range of measures to help children and young people benefit the internet and video games, while protecting them from dangerous and inappropriate material.
Dr Byron gives a detailed analysis of the evidence of the risks and benefits of new technologies and examines this evidence in the context of child and brain development theory and research to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the work which is already being carried out to protect children when surfing the internet or playing video games.
It concludes that while new technologies can bring incredible opportunities to children and young people, a general lack of confidence and awareness amongst parents is leaving children vulnerable to risks. Dr Byron compares unsupervised access to the Internet to opening the front door and letting your child go outside to play, unsupervised and highlights that online dangers can be enhanced by the anonymity and ubiquity of the Internet
The report makes a number of recommendations for improving improve children's on-line safety including:
Creating a new UK Council for Child Internet Safety, which will report to the Prime Minister, and including representation from Government, children's charities, and industry, in addition to children,teenagers and parents.
Requiring industry to take greater responsibility by establishing independently monitored codes of practice in areas such as user generated content, improving access to parental control software and safe search features and increased control over online advertising.
Launching a comprehensive public awareness campaign on child internet safety across Government and industry, including an authoritative single source for information and advice on child internet safety.
Establishing sustainable education and children's service initiatives to improve the skills of children and their parents in the area of online safety.
The report also recommends a number of high profile efforts to provide parents with information aboutwhat video games are suitable for their children. This includes:
Revising the classification system used for rating video games to use a single set of symbols which are the same as those for films.
Reducing the statutory requirement to classify video games to 12+, to bring it into line with film classification and make it easier for parents to understand.
Providing industry with clear and consistent guidance on how games should be advertised.
Asking industry to provide sustained and high profile efforts to increase parents knowledge of age ratings and improved parental controls.
Few of the proposals in the report would be difficult to put into practice. Many of them are already being implemented, eg: parental control software, age ratings for games and restrictions on illegal content.
A number of the solutions proposed by the report involve better education - especially for parents. Byron notes that "One key finding from the review of the literature on the effects of new technologies on children is that the potential risks to children from using the internet are correlated with the potential benefits, for example, where the opportunity to find information is coupled with a risk of stumbling across adult material, or the benefits of being able to communicate and make new friends comes with a risk of potentially harmful contact from strangers or bullying."
This suggests that attempts by education authorities and others to create "walled gardens", where children can experience the benefits of the Internet without being exposed to any of the the risks are doomed to failure, as eliminating the risks can also destroy many of the benefits.
Dr Byron's proposals also include better marketing of parental control software, both from computer manufacturers and internet service providers. The use of such software is already commonplace, but the report suggests that it would be useful to introduce a kitemark system to give parents additional information about what they are buying.
Ted Hastings has over 35 years experience in IT and education. He has written a textbook on http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1843725789?ie=UTF8&tag=sursaf-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1843725789) Internet Safety Skills and writes a popular blog entitled http://surfsafely.eu) Surf Safely.
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