Reference number: CH000526

Protecting children from harmful material and people on the Internet.

Question:

Protecting children from harmful material and people on the Internet.

Answer:

Some web pages and content on the Internet are not suitable for all audiences. Below is a listing of different steps you can do to help ensure your children are protected from harmful material or web pages you believe are not suitable for your children.

1. Talk to your children about the dangers of the Internet and what they should not do while on the Internet. Below is a basic listing of what you may consider discussing with your children.
   
   Personal Information - Never give personal information about yourself in chat rooms, web pages, or online forms. This includes age, area code, e-mail address, home address, home city, Internet Service Provider name, Instant Messenger name or address, other location related information, passwords, personal web page, phone (mobile phone) numbers, pictures of yourself, school name, school grade, school web page, weight, webcam address, workplace, and/or zip code.
   Never meet someone - Never agree to meet an individual from the Internet without the parents or guardian at the agreed meeting location.
   Internet Purchases - Never enter an area that costs money, requires a credit card, requires personal information, asks for passwords, and/or requires you hang up and dial another number with your computer without explicit permission from the parents or a parent present.
   Downloads - Never accept a file or download from another user.
   Web page - Do not visit web pages that are sent to you in e-mail, chat, or instant messengers without a parent or guardian present.
   Gifts - Never accept any type of gift from users you meet online.
   Friends - Don't give out your friends information as it could be tied to you.
   Talking about sex / provocative images - When online don't talk about sex, post provocative images, or tease other people online.
   Talk to you - If your child ever witnesses something that upsets them or makes them feel uncomfortable, make sure they know it's ok to talk with you.
   
   
2. Monitor or browse the Internet with your kids and/or try to keep the computer in an open area. Don't allow your child to have their own computer in their own room.
3. Make sure your child is not viewing any web pages they should not be viewing by looking at the Internet browser's history and/or make sure they are not deleting the history in order to hide what they are viewing.  See document CH000510 for additional information.
4. Look at the browser address bar or location bar for additional information about what was typed in the browser address bar. See document CH000511 for additional information.
5. If your computer has an Instant Messenger program, make sure that their friend list or buddy list doesn't have anyone you do not know of.
6. Social networking sites such as MySpace are a very popular destination for teens and younger users on the Internet because of the ability to communicate with friends and make new friends over the Internet. Unfortunately these locations are also frequently visited by online predators because of online pictures and personal information posted by many of users participating on them. If you allow your children to use these sites make sure they are not posting personal information about themselves as mentioned earlier in this document. We also strongly encourage that parents or the child who setup the account set their profile to private so only their friends and family can view the profile. Additional help and information about MySpace is also found on document CH000967.
7. Watch your child's school web page for any personal information about your kids such as pictures of a student, full name, address, etc. This information can be easily found using search engines if a predator knows your child's full name, school, and/or grade.
8. If your computer has any type of digital camera or webcam connected to it prohibit your child from using it without your presence and/or disconnect or disable it when you're not using it.
9. Many children and adults play online games. Just like the Internet children should know not to give out any personal information to other players or participate in any type of trading of in-game items for in-game services or real life personal information.
10. Users using Microsoft Internet Explorer can help protect their family from harmful material by enabling Internet Explorer Content Advisor. See document CH000523 for additional information.
11. Consider a third-party filter programs that help protect your computer from inappropriate sites. See our Internet filters section for a listing of these programs.

Additional information:

• See document CH000884 for additional information about finding nearby sexual offenders.
• Below is a listing of some additional computer dictionary definitions that relate to this article. Each of these terms have additional information and related information.

CDA
Censorware
COPPA
ICRA
Filter
Internet
PICS
RSAC