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Does parental control software work?

Posted on 24 Dec 2009 at 00:00

Davey Winder exposes the strengths and weaknesses of parental control software - and how kids get around it

Parental control software has been a part of online life since those heady early days when family-friendly service providers brought a ring-fenced internet experience to an eager public.

Along the way we’ve seen the development of standalone software, plugins for internet security suites, server-based filtering by ISPs, and even the addition of parental controls directly into Windows.

Yet, still a nagging doubt remains at the back of many parents’ minds: does any of it work? As children get online from ever-younger ages, and older kids frequently know more about computers than their parents, many products fail to provide the level of protection expected.

They’re often too restrictive or difficult to configure. Some parents even abdicate responsibility for looking after the parental control software to their children.

We’ve consulted parents, child-protection experts and software developers to find out how effective parental control software really is. And we’ve asked children aged between 11 and 16 to help us review four of the leading parental control packages to find out if they’re any safer than an open internet connection.

Know your enemy

Before you can understand how best to protect your child online, you need to know what threats they face. If your only metric is the media, you might be forgiven for thinking the internet is a paedophile paradise, with predatory behaviour the norm.

However, Dave Miles, director at the Family Online Safety Institute reminds us that while predation is perceived as the most challenging threat, “the reality is that cyber-bullying is probably a larger problem”.

Children used to be targeted outside school via email and chat; now social-networking sites have become the most popular route to online bullying.

A bully can create a page about a child, and others can join and add hurtful comments. “The speed, reach and relative anonymity that these groups achieve mean that their targets are subject to much greater intimidation and threat than old-style bullying,” said Rob Hopkins of software firm So Protect Me.

Cyber-bullying and peer pressure is also exerted through outlets such as the so-called “Pro-Anna” sites, which promote anorexia and extreme dieting. “Kids who don’t comply can be publicly ridiculed and intimidated, and suffer great distress,” Hopkins warns, leading to “serious physical and psychological consequences, in extreme cases resulting in suicide”.

And then we come to the type of threats that, perhaps understandably, get the tabloids overheated. “Flashing” is one such offence, according to the most recent Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre (CEOP) strategic review, with children being incited to watch sexual acts accounting for a fifth of the grooming behaviour reported by under-18s.

It isn’t only the behaviour of others that parents need to worry about, as Lucinda Fell, policy and communications manager at Childnet International explains. “Very often now, we’re also seeing children and young people putting themselves and others at risk through their conduct online.”

When it comes to the posting of inappropriate information – everything from a home address to school attended at one end, through to nude images at the other – education is key. Younger children need the equivalent of a Green Cross Code to help them get across the internet. “The simple fact is that teaching about road safety works,” said Colin McKeown from E-Safe Education. “If parents take the same approach with their children and the internet, the risks should decrease.”