UK must be safest place online, says government

The government has proclaimed it's going to tackle the morass of internet miscreants. With a publicity campaign.

The campaign will kick off with Parents Online week next month, when the government will launch new advertising on the radio and internet that will advise kids how to keep safe when they're using the web.

A Home Office spokesman said that children and young people "are aware of the issues, which have been around since 2001 when we started the campaign. We're trying to reinforce the message... when they're at their most vulnerable."

Home Office minister Paul Goggins claimed at the Promoting Mobile and Internet Safety Conference that the UK was leading the world at protecting children online. He also quoted statistics from the Home Office saying that 89 per cent of kids knew that they shouldn't give out details about themselves online.

However, a recent report from the London School of Economics, UK Children UK Online, found that half of all children had provided some element of information - for example, name age, address, email address or phone number - to someone they met on the internet. One-third of children between nine and 19 years old had received unwanted sexual or otherwise unpleasant comments while online.

"The safety advice not to give out personal details to other people they meet online seems to have gained a fair familiarity amongst young people, but there remains considerable scope for improved safety practices," the LSE report said.

In its safety drive, Whitehall is also teaming up with mobile companies and the police to work on preventing kids' phones getting nicked and on designing out crime.

Several mobile operators have already signed up to a scheme to prevent under-18 customers accessing adult content including porn and gambling sites, but so far only Vodafone has implemented the scheme.