CYP Now - Opinion: Mandatory software is a step towards safety

Access to the internet in schools is fast becoming ubiquitous. Here, its use is tightly regulated, with filters, firewalls and rules about safe surfing generally applied. But, with three-quarters of children now accessing the internet at home, and one in five able to go online from a computer in their own bedroom, internet safety is becoming a serious cause for concern.

Earlier this year, the London School of Economics published a survey, UK Children Go Online, which showed more than half of nine- to 19-year-olds had come into contact with online pornography. It is a problem, however, which parents seriously underestimate; only one in six parents who took part in the survey believed that their child had ever accessed pornography on the internet.

We have the technology to make computers safer for children to use, so why don't we make it mandatory for manufacturers to pre-install filtering software and set it to the highest level by default? NCH Action for Children has been right to argue that this step alone would make internet access considerably safer for children.

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