UK Council for Child Internet Safety

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The UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) was set up in 2008 under the Brown Government charged with bringing together government departments, law enforcement agencies, academia, private industry and third-sector representatives such as charities and voluntary groups to collaborate on strategies to ensure child internet safety. [1] It is a group made up of more than 200 constituent organisations with a board chaired by ministers. It collates internet safety research, conducts its own consultations, gives advice to industry providers and publishes a code of practice. [2] The remit of the Council began with the Byron Review and the group has subsequently drawn on diverse sources including the Bailey Review [3] and the work of Professor Sonia Livingstone.

Contents

Origin

The Internet Crime Forum was a UK-based organisation established to develop the relationship between the internet industry, government and law enforcement to tackle Internet crime and improve confidence in Internet use. Its report made several recommendations for protecting children on the internet, including improved supervision of chat rooms and better display of safety messages. The report led in March 2001 to the formation of the Home Secretary’s Taskforce on Online Child Protection. The Taskforce brought children’s agencies together with industry, government and law enforcement to improve children's safety in using the internet. [4]

A report published by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 31 July 2008 contained various recommendations among which were: [5]

On 29 September 2008 Children's Secretary Ed Balls and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced the launch of UKCCIS, which was supported by organisations including Google, Yahoo, BT, Microsoft, and Facebook, and which had an initial brief to deliver a "Child Internet Safety Strategy" to Prime Minister Gordon Brown in early 2009.

The organisations were to work closely with government to deliver recommendations from the Byron Review. They were also to look at ways of improving public awareness of child safety issues online, promote responsible online advertising to children and "provide specific measures to support vulnerable children and young people, such as taking down illegal internet sites that promote harmful behaviour." In addition they were also to investigate ways and means of "tackling problems around online bullying, safer search features, and violent video games." They were also to establish a voluntary code of practise for user-generated sites such as YouTube to agree a time limit for takedown of inappropriate content. [6]

Click Clever, Click Safe

In December 2009 the Council held a "summit" meeting chaired by Professor Tanya Byron and published a strategy document concerning the internet safety of children and young people: Click Clever, Click Safe. [7] The document set out:

Other activities undertaken by the Council included anti-Cyberbullying campaigning in conjunction with charities such as Beatbullying, promoting Safer Internet public awareness campaigns, and providing online safety resources for secondary school teachers. [10]

Internet filtering

Following the 2010 election, the new Coalition Government put forward proposals for default filtering of Internet pornography. In June 2012 the Council held a conference for its constituent organisations to discuss these proposals with Ministers. This was followed by a 10-week consultation held by the Council to determine views on which system should be used for the filtering. [11] Once filtering was introduced in November 2013 there were allegations that the blocking of websites providing information for the LGBT community could breach the Equality Act 2010. [12] It was soon realised that there were many sites which were being inadvertently blocked. These included charity-run sites whose aim was to educate children and others about health, sex education and drugs issues. The government asked the Council to set up a working group involving charities and industry to try to reduce the blocking of sex education advice for young people. The working group first met in December 2013 and involved ISPs, charities, representatives from government, the BBFC and mobile phone operators. Research was carried out on inadvertent blocking and charities were consulted to find out the degree to which the introduction filters had reduced their website visitor numbers. The working group then began constructing a whitelist of sites with the aim that the list would be shared among ISPs to ensure that the educational sites were not blocked. [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

Content-control software, commonly referred to as an Internet filter, is software that restricts or controls the content an Internet user is capable to access, especially when utilised to restrict material delivered over the Internet via the Web, e-mail, or other means. Content-control software determines what content will be available or be blocked.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is an Australian Government statutory authority within the Communications portfolio. ACMA was formed on 1 July 2005 with the merger of the Australian Broadcasting Authority and the Australian Communications Authority.

Internet censorship in Australia is enforced by both the country's criminal law as well as voluntarily enacted by internet service providers. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has the power to enforce content restrictions on Internet content hosted within Australia, and maintain a blocklist of overseas websites which is then provided for use in filtering software. The restrictions focus primarily on child pornography, sexual violence, and other illegal activities, compiled as a result of a consumer complaints process.

Parental controls Software feature allowing content filtering

Parental controls are features which may be included in digital television services, computer and video games, mobile devices and software that allow parents to restrict the access of content to their children. These controls were created to assist parents in their ability to restrict certain content viewable by their children. This may be content they deem inappropriate for their age, maturity level or feel is aimed more at an adult audience. Parental controls fall into roughly four categories: content filters, which limit access to age inappropriate content; usage controls, which constrain the usage of these devices such as placing time-limits on usage or forbidding certain types of usage; computer usage management tools, which enforces the use of certain software; and monitoring, which can track location and activity when using the devices.

Due to the international nature of the Internet, the legal status of Internet pornography carries with it special issues with regard to the law. There is no one set of laws that apply to the distribution, purchase, or possession of Internet pornography. This means that, for example, even if a pornographer is legally distributing pornography, the person receiving it may not be legally doing so due to local laws.

BeatBullying was an international charity aiming to empower young people to lead anti-bullying campaigns in their schools and local communities, and to build the capacity of local communities to sustain the work. BeatBullying devised bullying prevention strategies for young people by young people, focusing on "peer to peer" education and empowering young people to take action against incidents of bullying and help others combat the problem, both online and off.

Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command command of the UKs National Crime Agency

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command, or CEOP Command, is a command of the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA), and is tasked to work both nationally and internationally to bring online child sex offenders, including those involved in the production, distribution and viewing of child abuse material, to the UK courts. The centre was formed in April 2006 as the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, and was absorbed into the NCA on 7 October 2013 by the Crime and Courts Act 2013.

Beeban Kidron English film director

Beeban Tania Kidron, Baroness Kidron, is a British filmmaker and an advocate for children’s rights in the digital world.

Internet censorship in the United Kingdom is conducted under a variety of laws, judicial processes, administrative regulations and voluntary arrangements. It is achieved by blocking access to sites as well as the use of laws that criminalise publication or possession of certain types of material. These include English defamation law, the Copyright law of the United Kingdom, regulations against incitement to terrorism and child pornography.

Censorship in Denmark has been prohibited since 1849 by the Constitution:

§ 77: Any person shall be at liberty to publish his ideas in print, in writing, and in speech, subject to his being held responsible in a court of law. Censorship and other preventive measures shall never again be introduced.

The Byron Review was a report ordered in September 2007 by the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown and delivered on the 27 March 2008 to the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families. It was authored and overseen by Dr Tanya Byron. The Review focussed on the use of video games and the Internet by children, and discussed the use of classification and the role of parenting in policing these.

Family Online Safety Institute non-profit organisation in the USA

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Internet Watch Foundation organization

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Net Nanny

Net Nanny is a content-control software suite marketed primarily towards parents as a way to monitor and control their child's computer and phone activity.

Childnet organization

Childnet International is a registered UK charity that aims to make the internet a safe place for children and young people.

The precise number of websites blocked in the United Kingdom is unknown. Blocking techniques vary from one Internet service provider (ISP) to another with some sites or specific URLs blocked by some ISPs and not others. Websites and services are blocked using a combination of data feeds from private content-control technology companies, government agencies, NGOs, court orders in conjunction with the service administrators who may or may not have the power to unblock, additionally block, appeal or recategorise blocked content.

The Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) was set up in 2010 by ACPO to remove unlawful terrorist material content from the Internet, with a specific focus on UK based material. CTIRU works with internet platforms to identify content which breaches their terms of service and requests that they remove the content on a voluntary basis. CTIRU also compile a list of URLs for material hosted outside the UK which are blocked on networks of the public estate.

Internet Matters is a nonprofit organisation, based in London, England. It was set up to help parents keep their children safe online.

WeProtect organization

WeProtect is a global alliance led by the UK government. Founded by Baroness Joanna Shields and supported by over 84 countries, 24 technology companies and 20 civil society organisations, WePROTECT's mission is to stop the global crime of online child sexual abuse and exploitation.

References

  1. ↑ "UK Council for Child Internet Safety Website". UK Council for Child Internet Safety.
  2. ↑ "Child internet safety". Department for Education. 18 July 2013.
  3. ↑ "Letting Children Be Children: report of an independent review of the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood". Department for Education. 6 June 2011.
  4. ↑ "Read about the Home Secretary's Taskforce on Online Child Protection and the Child Exploitation Online Protection (CEOP) Centre". UK Home Office. Archived from the original on 2010-04-13.
  5. ↑ "Harmful content on the Internet and in video games" (PDF). House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee. 31 July 2008. Archived from the original (pdf) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 31 December 2015.
  6. ↑ "Government Launches New UK Council For Child Internet Safety". Department for Children, Schools and Families. 29 September 2008.
  7. ↑ "Click Clever Click Safe: The first UK Child Internet Safety Strategy". Department for Children, Schools and Families. Archived from the original on 1 April 2013. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
  8. ↑ "Internet safety for children targeted". BBC News. 8 December 2009. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
  9. ↑ "The 'Green Cross Code' for internet safety". South West Grid for Learning Trust. 8 December 2009. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
  10. ↑ "Safer Children in a Digital World - UKCCIS Strategy document launched". South East Grid for Learning. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
  11. ↑ "Parents asked if adult websites should be blocked". Department for Education and Home Office (Press release). 28 June 2012.
  12. ↑ "The secret censorship stopping you seeing gay websites". Gay Star News. 12 November 2013. Retrieved 12 December 2013.
  13. ↑ "UK government tackles wrongly-blocked websites". BBC News. 31 January 2014. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
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