On February 7th parents and children, young and old, from 33 countries took part in Safer Internet Day. Despite an increasing number of awareness initiatives such as this, parents are sometimes helpless when faced with the explosion in new online threats for young people. Parental control solutions, when well chosen and up to date, can be a great help. How do they work and which kind should you use? Here is some useful information.
Another method is to establish “whitelists”, i.e. sites considered to be suitable for children, and to forbid all other websites, but this method risks being overly restrictive of Internet use. A word of caution: the software’s blacklists can quickly become obsolete as dozens of new sites are created daily. In order to be effective, these lists must be regularly updated.
Filtering by keyword also plugs any gaps left when filtering by URL. The software defines words unsuitable for children in advance and blocks all sites which contain them. Parents can also make up their own lists of forbidden sites.
You will, of course, have warned your child never to give their personal details to strangers, but how can you be sure that someone describing themselves as a friend of the same age won’t manage to extract that information? This is one of the safety trouble spots in chat rooms, forums or live discussions on instant messaging. Parental control software can help you with this problem too. It monitors the information entering and exiting the computer to prevent protected information such as your surname, address, telephone number or the name of your child’s school from being disclosed.
Norton Parental Control and Norton Privacy Control, included in the Norton Internet Security suite, filter websites (by URL and keyword) and ensure that confidential information isn’t sent out. This option isn’t limited to online discussions; it can also be applied to online shopping, meaning you can stop your child from giving your address or bank card details to e-commerce sites.
The risks posed by the web are not restricted to harmful content or ill-intentioned people: parents must also be aware of how long their children stay connected, to make sure they don’t neglect their school work or that the web doesn’t become their only hobby. Parental control software also allows you to limit how long your children spend on the Internet.
Some web browsers include rules to stop children from accessing websites unsuitable for young people. They can be useful as an extra measure for very young children but are unsuitable for teenagers due to their overly-restrictive whitelists. Moreover, they can easily be deactivated by a teenager with good IT skills.
Some parental control software is included in suites offering other functions, such as antivirus protection or firewalls. This is the case with Norton Internet Security, which offers a complete solution with antivirus, firewall, parental control software, privacy software and an anti-spam.
Software solutions can’t take care of everything. Even if you install parental control software, be sure to take these extra precautions:
- Set up the family computer in a room used by the whole family, especially if you have children under 15. This will ensure that your child is not alone in front of the computer.
- Accompany your child as they first learn about the Internet and explain to them the possible risks.
- Lay down rules of good conduct together. Some indispensable rules: don’t forget to remind your kids to never give out their personal information to someone they don’t know; to never agree to meet someone they don’t know (even someone of their own age); to let you know when they want to buy things online; and to delete emails from unknown addresses without opening them.
