Written question asked by Mark Pritchard (Conservative) on Tuesday, 9 March 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 11 March 2010. It was answered by Alan Campbell (Labour) on Wednesday, 17 March 2010 on behalf of the Home Office.

Internet: Safety

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will hold discussions with the owners of (a) Facebook and (b) other social networking sites on improving (i) online security and (ii) advice on security for users of such sites.

Answer: We take the safety of children and adults on the internet very seriously, and we created CEOP (the Child Exploitation and Online Protection) to develop a law enforcement capability to fight the sexual abuse of children in the online environment, and to provide a body to act as the national centre for this crime. CEOP have developed the "ClickCEOP" button for use on social networking and other sites, to allow users who feel threatened to report direct to CEOP.We expect the providers of these sites to take the safety of their users seriously, and we would urge them to put the "ClickCEOP" button on their website.The Home Secretary and I will be meeting Facebook shortly, to discuss online safety with them.

Secondary information