The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has launched a new internet strategy, designed to help children and young people stay safe online.Click Clever Click Safe: The first UK Child Internet Safety Strategy was drawn up by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, a coalition of over 100 private sector, governmental and charity organisations.
The strategy includes the introduction of a new digital code, Zip it, Block it, Flag it, described as the Green Cross Code for internet safety. Social networking sites, schools, retailers and charities are expected to adopt the digital code, and parents can find advice on online safety at a website hosted by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre. From the start of the new academic year in 2011, internet safety will become a compulsory part of the school curriculum for children aged five and over.
Recent studies suggest that 99 per cent of eight to seventeen-year-olds have access to the internet. Eighteen per cent of young people said they had encountered harmful or inappropriate content on the web and 33 per cent said that their parents are not really aware of what they are doing online.
