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•  The Byron Review's recommendations
•  Dedicated Office of Internet Safety in Ireland

The Byron Review

Dr Tanya Byron, clinical psychologist and TV presenter published her review of the effects on children and young people of the Internet and video games.  Her independent review, commissioned by the UK Government, 'Safer Children in a Digital World' concludes that although new technologies bring great opportunities to children and young people many parent's  lack of awareness of the risks also brought by Web 2.0 technologies is leaving children vunerable.

The objectives of the Review were:

• To undertake a review of the evidence on risks to children’s safety and wellbeing
   of exposure to potentially harmful or inappropriate material on the Internet and
   in video games.
• To assess the effectiveness of existing measures to help prevent
   children from being exposed to such material.  To help parents understand and
   manage the risks of access to inappropriate content.   To make 
   recommendations for improvements or additional action.

Dr Byron's chief recommendation - 

• The creation of a new UK Council for Child Internet Safety, established by and reporting to the Prime Minister, and including representation from across Government, industry, children’s charities and other key stakeholders including children, young people and parent panels.

In order to improve children’s on-line safety, Dr Byron makes a number of other recommendations including: 

• Challenging industry to take greater responsibility in supporting families through: establishing transparent and independently monitored codes of practice on areas such as user generated content; improving access to parental control software and safe search features; and better regulation of online advertising.

• Kick starting a comprehensive public information and awareness campaign on child internet safety across Government and industry, and which includes an authoritative ‘one stop shop’ on child internet safety.

• Setting in place sustainable education and children’s service initiatives to improve the skills of children and their parents around e-safety.

On video games, Dr Byron recommends a range of targeted efforts to help inform parents what games are right for their children, such as:

• Reforming the classification system for rating video games with one set of symbols on the front of all boxes which are the same as those for film.

• Lowering the statutory requirement to classify video games to 12+, so that it is the same as film classification and easier for parents to understand.

• Clear and consistent guidance for industry on how games should be advertised.

• Challenging industry to provide sustained and high profile efforts to increase parents understanding of age ratings and improved parental controls.

The Office of Internet Safety, Ireland

On the 20th September 2007 The Minister of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr Brian Lenihan T.D., announced the establishment of the Office for Internet Safety (OIS).  Minister Lenihan explained that it will be an executive office of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform with responsibility for:

• internet safety, particularly in relation to combating child pornography,
• internet Hotline (www.hotline.ie) - the system for dealing with reports of illegal 
  content on the internet),
• internet safety awareness campaigns, and
• monitoring compliance with the Internet Service Provider industry code of 
  practice.

Minister Lenihan noted that in recent years there has been an enormous increase in
internet usage in Ireland.  He said that the nature of the industry is dynamic with spectacular developments in communications technologies and the convergence of such technologies.  While these are largely positive developments tackling the  negative aspects of internet use – whether on a PC or on a mobile phone, is a complex business and continues to set new challenges for all those charged with guarding against the downside of the internet.

Minister Lenihan announced that he will establish, an Internet Safety Advisory Council. The Advisory Council will be drawn from representatives of the key stakeholders in the statutory, industry and community sectors, and will support the work of the OIS.

Dr Byron commended the work of the makeITsecure campaign in Ireland as a good example of how a joint government-industry awareness campaign can be successful in generating greater awareness of the issue of Internet Safety.  Led by The Department of Communications with partners including RTE, the NCTE, Microsoft, Symantec, Irish Bankers Federation and many corporate partners the 2008 nationwide campaign was the first run on an all Ireland basis and including Northern Ireland.

The Byron Review may be read in full  here