Four in five parents fear kids will see porn online

FOUR in five parents and grandparents worry about children stumbling across sexually explicit images or pornography on the web, research has found.

But despite the vast amount of vile content available, an extraordinary 81 per cent of parents allow children aged four to six access to tablets.

Of those people caring for four to six-year-olds, 28 per cent allow children to access video streaming sites without being supervised.

Nearly 70 per cent of children aged under four have access to a tablet, and 44 per cent have access to a smartphone.

Sarah Smith, from the Internet Watch Foundation, said: ‘As we go into the summer holidays, we are encouraging parents and car-

‘Unsupervised internet use’

ers to think about the services children might be using, and look at these themselves so they fully understand their capabilities.’

The IWF has previously warned of paedophiles posing as young children on messaging and video sharing websites such as Facebook’s Live video tool, YouTube and Live.me.

The research, conducted in association with parenting forum Mumsnet, found that parents were most worried about their children being exposed to pornography followed by bullying and bad language.

Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts said: ‘As the summer holidays get under way, the truth is that unsupervised internet use by children is as unremarkable as unsupervised CBeebies-watching.

‘It’s clear, though, that parents need more information about the risks of live-streaming.’