Minister urges action over phone bullying

MINISTER OF State for Children Barry Andrews has urged mobile phone companies to take action on cyber-bullying - despite technological barriers to finding a solution to the problem.

Mr Andrews met with representatives of the four mobile phone operators in the State - O2, Vodafone, Meteor and 3 - yesterday to discuss an issue which he has described as a "social blight".

The meeting was arranged before the operators appeared in front of the Joint Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources this week to answer questions from politicians on the same issue.

All four said they had examined KidSafe, an application developed by a Dublin-based company Sentry Wireless which allows children to only receive or make calls from approved numbers, but had found it to be technically deficient.

They told the committee that KidSafe did not block messages or texts left when the phone is turned off and it only works for Samsung handsets, which are a small percentage of the Irish market.

Mr Andrews said he would contact technical experts in the Department of Communications to examine if a technical solution could be found which would allow children to filter out potentially abusive calls or texts. He also intends to meet the operators every three months on the issue.

Irish children have one of the highest rate of ownership of mobile phones in the world. More than half of all five- to nine-year-olds have a mobile phone, rising to 90 per cent for children between the ages of 10 and 14.

Mr Andrews said he suggested to the companies that, despite their reservations about KidSafe, they should consider trialling it using Samsung handsets.

"It strikes me that some of the problems they raised can be easily overcome or are really an excuse to do nothing," he said.

"We've said you'll never get a Rolls-Royce solution. Because you can't do everything is not an excuse for doing nothing. Even if some percentage of texts or voice messages can be blocked by an albeit imperfect system, surely that is worth pursuing."

Mr Andrews also said a parents' guide to mobile phones, which has been produced by mobile phone operators, was not widely enough available or known to the people who might make use of it.

He also urged that a third edition of the booklet which is about to go to print should have updated information about cyber-bullying.

He told the mobile phone operators should help fund the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC) Childline service which regularly receives calls from children who have been bullied by other children using mobile phones.

"That will establish their bona-fides - that they are genuine about it and that they are willing to put the resources into it," said Mr Andrews.