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Increasingly, children, and teenagers in particular, are far more at home online than their parents are. The opportunities to converse with other youngsters who share their interests make for a liberating experience. But some parents fear the worst, and a few have even chosen to monitor their offspring's online activities in an attempt to keep them safe.

Computer Shopper talked to Stephen (not his real name), who decided to install a keylogger about six months ago to ensure that his daughters, aged 11 and 14, and son, 16, remained safe online. His children don't know about this, so why did he choose to take such drastic action?

"It was not an easy decision to make, but a major part of it was not knowing what they were getting up to on the computer, which was a worry to [me and my wife]. You can't be there all the time, and the news was full of stories about kids going to meet people they had met online. We just felt it was safer to know what they were up to. When they're out we insist on them telling us where they are, and we ring other parents to check on them, so really it was just an extension of that."

So how did he go about it? "We just downloaded a keylogger and installed it on the family computer in the living room. It has a special combination of keys you have to press to get the Control Panel up and then you can look at the log to see what's been going on."

But isn't logging everything his kids type to their friends a breach of trust? "Initially, I felt bad and we talked about it a lot, but we came to the conclusion that we'd rather say sorry and explain why we did what we did than have something bad happen to one of them."

And what do they get up to online? "I don't want to say, but it's not anything bad. I just want to know that they're not up to anything really dreadful or falling in with the wrong crowd. I delete the log file immediately after I've read it and forget about it."

What would Stephen do if he found that something was going on that he thought might be dangerous? "Well, we're hoping that never happens. But if and when it does, we'll explain what we've done and why we did it. If one of our children ever finds out about what we've been doing, we will sit them down as a family and tell them that we only wanted to protect them because we love them. We think they'll understand why."

Wouldn't it be better simply to educate his children about the risks of life online and to trust them? Stephen is adamant. "We believe this gives them the most freedom to explore without them knowing that we are keeping them safe. Do you want to be making an appeal when one of your kids goes missing? I certainly don't."

It's a controversial idea, but one Stephen feels is worth the risk. "I do worry about them finding out, but at the end of the day it's about us loving them and wanting them to stay safe. The internet is a great place, but there are people out there from whom we need to keep our kids safe."

	1 Keeping tabs on a child's movements online using Family Keylogger could keep them safe, but at what cost to the trust they have in you?

	2 Keylogger output gives parents a detailed record of every keystroke made by their child