The Byron Review on Internet Safety

The Department for Children, Schools and Families launched a report entitled “Safer Children in a Digital World” on 27th March, 2008. The report is authored by Dr Tanya Byron, a clinical psychologist who is mother to two children. It was commissioned by Gordon Brown in September 2007 and suggests a package of measures to help children and young people make the most of the internet and video games, while protecting them from harmful and unsuitable material.

Dr Byron gives a detailed analysis of the evidence of the risks and benefits of new technologies and examines this evidence in the context of child and brain development theory and research to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the work which is already being carried out to protect children when surfing the internet or playing video games.

Dr Byron comes to the conclusion that that while new technologies can bring incredible opportunities to children and young people, a lack of confidence and awareness amongst parents is leaving children vulnerable to risks. She compares unsupervised access to the Internet to opening the front door and letting your child go outside to play unsupervised and highlights online dangers can be increases by the anonymity and ubiquitousness of the Internet

Dr Byron makes a number of suggestions for improving improve children’s on-line safety including:

Creating a new UK Council for Child Internet Safety, reporting to the Prime Minister, and including representation from Government, industry, children’s charities and other key stakeholders including children, young people and parents.

Requiring industry to take greater responsibility by establishing independently monitored codes of practice in areas such as user generated content, improving access to parental control software and safe search features and increased control over online advertising.

Launching a comprehensive public awareness campaign on child internet safety across Government and industry, including an authoritative single source for information and advice on child internet safety.

Providing sustainable education and children’s service initiatives to improve the online safetyskills of children and their parents.

Dr Byron also recommends a range of high profile efforts to educate parents about the suitability of video games are right for their children. This includes:

Updating the classification system for rating video games to use a single set of symbols which are the same as those for movies.

Reducing the statutory requirement to classify video games to 12+, to bring it into line with film classification and make it easier for parents to understand.

Providing industry with clear and consistent guidance on how games should be advertised.

Asking industry to provide sustained and high profile efforts to increase parents knowledge of age ratings and improved parental controls.

Few of the proposals in the report would be difficult to put into practice. Some of them have already been implemented, eg: parental control software, age ratings for video games and restrictions on illegal content.

It is interesting to note that many of the solutions proposed by Dr. Byron involve better education - particularly for parents. Byron notes that “One key finding from the review of the literature on the effects of new technologies on children is that the potential risks to children from using the internet are correlated with the potential benefits, for example, where the opportunity to find information is coupled with a risk of stumbling across adult material, or the benefits of being able to communicate and make new friends comes with a risk of potentially harmful contact from strangers or bullying.”

It may be that efforts by education authorities and others to create “walled gardens”, where children can benefit from the Internet without being exposed to the risks are misguided, as removing the risks can also eliminate many of the benefits.

The report’s proposals also include better promotion of parental control software by computer manufacturers and internet service providers. Although the use of such software is already widespread, the report suggests that it would be of benefit to introduce a kitemark system to inform parents about what they are buying.