Tools to help you
(With gratitude to The Internet Watch Foundation)

Software Tools
There are no foolproof ways of protecting children online and the best way of ensuring that your children's experience of the Internet is positive is through ongoing close parental supervision and ensuring your children agree and practice the SMART rules.

It may not always be possible to have close parental supervision with your children. So you may wish to use software tools to help you to protect your children online. These can be either purchased from leading computer stores or downloaded from the Internet, and some are also provided by individual ISPs and hardware suppliers.

The types of software tools fall into 2 main groups: Commercial filtering and monitoring products, and Tools in your browser

FILTERING AND MONITORING PRODUCTS
Many commercial products are available which can help to limit the potential dangers to children on the Internet (outlined on the Dangers page). Installing filters can help you block sites you may not wish your children to be exposed to eg. sexually explicit material, hate and violence sites, alcohol and gambling. Software can also help you monitor the time your child spends on the computer and material they have been viewing as well as block outgoing and incoming information.

The most important thing to remember when it comes to considering which tools to use is that no single filtering product can be guaranteed to totally protect your child from accessing inappropriate material. Some older children may be able to find ways to get around the filter and children may be using other computers which do not have filters, for example at other people's houses or in cybercafes. Like a seat belt in a car, a filter can help protect you but it cannot guarantee you will not have a crash!

Helpful resources for selecting tools are available at the GetNetWise site which you can reach through our Relevant Links page. This gives a comprehensive assessment of what software tools are designed to do as well as further information on other resources, such as special Internet browsers for children, kids-only search engines, children's safe areas, and what various ISPs are doing to help keep children safe on the Net.

TOOLS IN YOUR INTERNET BROWSER
Both Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Communicator include within the browser a feature which allows parents to select the kind of websites they would like their children to see. The system works in the following way:

Webmasters fill in a questionnaire about what content their Web site contains, eg is there nudity, sex, violence or bad language.

A hidden label is then generated describing the Web site.

The parent sets up their browser to indicate what kinds of content they will accept eg they can decide "no violence and a little nudity, but no sex."

Every time the child tries to access a website, the browser first checks if the label complies with the conditions the parent has set. If it doesn't, or the site has no label, it is blocked.

The best system currently available is the "Recreational Software Advisory Council's" RSACi system. This is now operated by the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) which gives detailed instructions on how to set up the filters in different browsers in their Web site.

Although this system has been available since 1996, it has been particularly focussed on the USA and not enough Web sites have been labelled yet. In the last two years a major effort has been made to address these problems and make the system much easier to use for parents in different countries. IWF has played a leading role in these efforts and the new ICRA system will be launched next year.