Here you can find a range of resources and top tips to help you and your family, friends, students or colleagues navigate the Internet safely.
The Safer Internet Centre, which is funded by the European Commission, provides a helpline for professionals who work with children and young people in the UK, specifically to tackle the area of e-safety. It provides support with all aspects of digital and online issues such as social networking sites, cyber-bullying, sexting, online gaming and child protection online. The helpline operates from Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm at 0844 381 4772. The team can also be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.org.
The organisation also arranges Safer Internet Day each year to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones. In 2013 – the tenth anniversary of Safer Internet Day – it took place on Tuesday 5th February, based on the theme ‘Online Rights and Responsibilities’ and teaching people to ‘Connect with respect’.
If you need help with an issue that has legal implications there are a number of organisations that you can contact:
Grooming or other illegal behaviour:
If you want to report someone who is behaving suspiciously online towards a child, you should contact the emergency services by calling 999, or make a report to CEOP, the Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre: www.ceop.gov.uk
Criminal content online:
Criminal content in the UK includes child sexual abuse images, criminally obscene adult content as well as non-photographic child sexual abuse images. If you stumble across criminal content online, you should report it to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF): www.iwf.org.uk/report
Online content which incites hatred on the grounds of race, religion and sexual orientation – including those on the grounds of disability and transgender identity – should now be reported to True Vision: www.report-it.org.uk
If you have been a victim of online fraud, you should report this to the UK government agency, Action Fraud: www.actionfraud.org.uk or 0300 1232040