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Written question asked by Jim Cunningham (Labour) on Tuesday, 8 December 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 15 December 2009. It was answered by Alan Campbell (Labour) on Wednesday, 16 December 2009 on behalf of the Home Office.

Internet: Children

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps his Department is taking to educate parents on best practices on the internet in order to protect their children.
Answer

[holding answer 15 December 2009]: The Government created the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) in 2006 to help protect children online. As part of their remit, CEOP provide safety information to parents, carers and teachers.This is set out in the "Think U Know" website, which provides practical safety information for adults to allow them to keep children safe online. This information will help adults to keep themselves safe, and to help children to understand the internet, the risks that they might face, and how to protect themselves. The site also provides a direct link to CEOP for children who feel threatened online to report the threat through CEOP's "Report Abuse" button.When we created CEOP, we recognised the need to develop a law enforcement capability to fight the sexual abuse of children in the online environment, and to provide a national body to act as the national centre for this crime.Since its inception, CEOP has been a remarkable success. It has rescued over 300 children, and has led to the arrest of a significant number of people seeking to harm children. It has also developed the leading UK child internet safety website, "Think U Know", which provides practical safety information for adults to allow them to keep children safe online. This information will help adults to keep themselves safe, and to help children to understand the internet, the risks that they might face, and how to protect themselves.With this record of success, I believe that the time is right to give CEOP a legal identity of its own. I am therefore announcing today that we will strengthen CEOP's role in protecting children by granting it NDPB status. This will allow CEOP to respond quickly and effectively to emerging online threats and to take on additional work relating to the protection of children at a national level.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
502 c1392W; 306325
Session
2009-10
Related items
Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre
Monday, 11 January 2010
Written statements
House of Commons
Internet: Children
Monday, 11 January 2010
Written statements
House of Lords
Subjects
Children Internet
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk