Parents warned about online safety

Irish parents are not fully aware of the extent to which their children may be accessing inappropriate online content, new research shows.

The survey, carried out by internet security company McAfee, found that a fifth of teenagers surveyed in Ireland have accessed inappropriate online content that disturbed them and many take steps to hide their online activity from their parents.

The results were released to coincide with the announcement this morning of a programme that will see McAfee staff volunteers educate 10,000 children across Ireland about online safety by the end of 2014.

Launching the Online Safety for Kids programme at Government Buildings, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said: “When you consider many of the tragic cases we have had of cyberbullying …it is so important that young people and children have an understanding of the requirements for safety and being safe online.”

The McAfee-sponsored Digital Divide survey was carried out in October and involved 200 teenagers, aged 13-17, and 200 parents of teenagers.

It identified a ‘disconnect’ between how well parents think they can keep their children safe online and their actual ability to do that. This ‘disconnect’, the survey suggested, can lead to dangerous and illegal online activity.

According to the results, some 57 per cent of parents trust their children not to access inappropriate content online while 23 per cent of teenagers admitted to intentionally searching for pornography.

Ten per cent of teenagers admitted to posting revealing photographs of themselves online and 11 per cent admitted to meeting up with someone they had met on the internet.

Over half of the participants said they have visited websites they knew their parents would disapprove of while 45 per cent said they had downloaded illegal online content such as pirated movies and music.

Referring to the advent of the so-called ‘internet of things’ and IP-addressable devices such as children’s clothes that can detect symptoms of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and medicine bottles that remind patients when to take their medicine, McAfee president Michael DeCesare said: “The connectivity we have in all aspects of our lives is unprecedented.”

“Unfortunately that connectivity also comes with a price” .

Warning of the dangers children face by leaving large digital footprints, Mr DeCesare emphasised the need for parents need to learn about the technology their children are using.

Children, he said, are now growing up “in a very different time” to their parents.

“We have a responsibility as adults to make sure that our kids grow up in a world where they understand the risks and rewards of using the internet safely,” he said.

He said it was important to provide children with the tools they need to stay safe online.

Children, he said, can quickly get to a point where they have created a big online footprint before realising they have done so.

“It really is (about) education. It’s about the do’s and don’ts. It’s giving children some visibility into the ways to behave online responsibly.”

“When you look at people who may have taken their life - more often than not they will have shared something about themselves they wished they hadn’t and somebody used that against them.”

The Online Safety for Kids programme will see staff volunteers from McAfee and parent company Intel teach safety courses in schools and community organisations over the next 12 months.

“Today is a very big step for us here in Ireland. We have set a goal for ourselves to have over 10,000 student trained by the end of the year (2014). I’d like to be able to come back and declare Ireland our top country relative to our success in this programme,” Mr DeCesare added.