Government reveals new online safety lessons for children

Lessons in online safety are due to become part of the national curriculum in England from 2011 for all primary school age children.

The new government strategy which is called "Click Clever, Click Safe" will encourage children to follow an online code to block and report inappropriate web content.

These measures have been drawn up by the new UK Council on Child Safety which comprises of 140 organisations who are updating a self regulatory code of conduct that governs online behaviour.

At the launch of the campaign Prime Minister Gordon Brown said "We must ensure that this virtual world is safe for our children just as we try to ensure that the real world is"

"The internet is a wonderful and powerful tool that is changing the way we learn and the way we stay in touch, but unfortunately there are risks from those intent exploiting its benefits."

The 'Zip It, Block It, Flag It' campaign is intended to be used by schools, retailers and social networks, although individual websites can choose how they will use it.

A widescale publicity campaign will be launched from February 2010.

"We hope that 'Zip It, Block It, Flag It' will become as familiar to this generation as 'Stop, Look and Listen' was to the last said Mr. Brown.

The initiative will encourage children not to give out personal information on the internet, to block unwanted messages on social networking sites and to report any inappropriate behaviour to the appropriate bodies, which may include the website, teachers or police. Inappropriate content can be reported to the Internet Watch Foundation in the UK and online abuse can be reported to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

"The digital code is the green cross code for the digital age", said Dr Tanya Byron who has been in charge of a review into inappropriate material on the internet and computer games.

"It's about what the risks are in the online space, what can be done in order to help them learn to manage those risks and to get help if they become more than they can sort out themselves."

The UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) was established as a result of Dr Byron's review.

"No one is saying it is scary stuff" said Dr. Byron. "It's about the management of risk in the same way that we want children to understand and manage risk in the real world, in the offline world."

"No one is saying there are huge massive dangers out there"

"18% of children have come across inappropriate material. It's 18% too many, but it's not as big as people believe on the scare stories and fear mongering."

Google, Microsoft and Facebook are some of the organisations involved in the new UK Council who have pledged their support for the campaign.

A Google spokesman said that most of the websites represented by the UK council had controls in place that help users manage their personal information and block or report unwanted contact.

"We're strong supporters of the 'Zip It, Block It, Flag It" educational campaign as another way to get this message out and help young people to remember how to stay safe online."

Further details regarding the rules will be published in 2010 as a benchmark against which the government can review websites.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) who are the UK law enforcement agency responsible for tracing online sex offenders already offers the 'Report Online Abuse' button for websites.

The report button is already used by Bebo and MSN Instant Messenger, however the government will announce that all 270,000 computers provided under its Home Access scheme will also have the report button included.

Currently only secondary school pupils are taught about internet safety, however the new scheme will teach all children from aged five years old as part of the Personal, Health and Economic Education (PHSE) which also includes drug awareness, bullying, sex education, healthy living and personal finance. This is not a compulsory part of the curriculum currently, however this will become compulsory from 2011 if the legislation goes through parliament.

A poll of more that 2,000 young people in November by charity Beatbullying found that 57% had been harassed online whilst using Windows Live Messenger.