Tiscali: Protect your Children

The Grooming problem is real. There's only one way to keep children safe from the threat of grooming without barring them from online contact. Crisp can read between the lines of Instant Message chat to spot grooming patterns and alert parents and children to what's going on.

What is meant by 'internet grooming'?
Like everything else in life the internet is not completely secure. Young people using the internet are especially vulnerable, particularly in chat rooms and on message boards. They can be communicating with anyone, including groomers who often pose as another young person. The groomer asks leading questions, which over time become inappropriate and sexual in nature, resulting in a request for a meeting between the groomer and the young person.

Often young people are not aware of the risk to which they are exposed. They can be intimidated by the conversation and not feel able to discuss it with an adult. Sometimes the online conversation can be going on via a home based PC with parents completely unaware of the threat facing their children.

Is Internet grooming a growing problem?
As young people have increased access to the Internet, so there is an increased risk that they will encounter inappropriate conversations online. The UK government's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) now gets over 3,000 grooming reports a year. CEOP says one in four of today's children will eventually meet up with someone they first contacted online, compared with one in 12 just four years ago.

Crisp supplements existing software and improves upon any existing parental controls software that you might have. This means that as your kids get older you can afford to relax the filters you place on their access to enable them to explore more of the internet without compromising their safety.

Online child protection based on blocks, locks and word filters does not work. Tiscali Child Protection from Crisp does work by monitoring over 200 variables in Instant Message conversations and not just 'naughty words'. You are only alerted to problems thereby respecting childrens' freedom and privacy. Protect children againt online groomers.