Protect your family from online danger
Internet safety is a confusing and fast-moving world – let us guide you
Six steps to sorting out your tech safety
‘When changing any settings or creating PINS, make sure you sign out of the account afterwards, so all your changes are saved’
STEP 1 Online tweaks to do right now
Children aged five to 15 spend about 15 hours a week online and threeto four-year-olds are not far behind, totting up on average an incredible eight hours, a recent report found. So take control and use your internet provider’s settings to filter out the bad stuff. Any phone, tablet or computer using your wi-fi will adopt the parental control restrictions you set up, although you can disable the filters for certain periods when you need to.
VIRGIN MEDIA
With Virgin broadband, under My Apps on your account, select Web Safe. There, you can turn on Child Safe filters, block websites and set a timer to switch off Child Safe for a designated period.
SKY
Sky broadband customers should head online to My Sky and select Broadband Shield. You can then choose from three filters akin to the cinema ratings system: PG, 13 and 18.
BT
Under Extras on the My BT page you’ll find Parental Controls. You get the choice of light, moderate or strict filters and you can block sites. You can also set homework times.
STEP 2 Safe Googling
Even if you’ve set your parental controls, inappropriate thumbnails may still show up after an image search, although the websites they relate to will be blocked.
After you’ve set your broadband controls, type ‘nude’ into Google Images. Shocked?
To fix this, go to google.co.uk then create a Google account if you don’t already have one. Set the Safesearch feature (under Settings/search Settings) and turn on Safesearch to block the majority of nasties showing up.
Google ‘nude’ again and all you should see is nude nail polishes and Kate Middleton-type shoes.
You can then set up this account on all the devices and laptops – including tablets or phones – to which your child has access.
STEP 3 Safe streaming
To stop little fingers clicking on the likes of
Game Of Thrones or The Affair, set restrictions on your TV and film streaming accounts.
In your SKY GO account, you can create a PIN to set age-appropriate content, which will cover all the household devices that have the service. For VIRGIN TV ANYWHERE, under Manage Accounts in your online profile you can select the age rating for viewing from U, PG, 12, 15 and 18.
On NETFLIX, go to Preferences/parental Controls and choose ‘little kids’, ‘older kids’ or ‘teens’. You can also create individual profiles with different filters for each family member. On IPLAYER, ITV HUB, 4OD and MY5, set a PIN to view age-restricted programmes. For peace of mind, download the YOUTUBE
KIDS APP on to your child’s tablet – it only shows child-friendly content and hides comments.
AMAZON VIDEO users should log on to their Amazon account. Under Video Settings and Devices you can set a PIN to restrict viewing and block purchases of on-demand films and programmes via the app. If you are using an AMAZON FIRE box or Fire Stick with your TV, you need to set their filters, too. You’ll find them in the Fire TV menu settings under Parental Controls.
STEP 4 Secure smartphones and tablets
A third of pre-schoolers own their own tablet or games console and, on average, children have their own smartphone by the age of seven, according to recent research. In IPHONE AND IPAD SETTINGS go to General, enable restrictions, then tailor for your child’s age. You can completely block access to features, including Facetime, itunes, websites and apps. With an ANDROID PHONE OR TABLET, you can choose what can be downloaded from the Google Play store. In settings, choose User Controls and Content Filtering, then select the filters you want before saving them with a PIN. Make sure you’ve ticked ‘Use PIN for purchases’ to avoid the kids running up a hefty bill.
STEP 5 Don’t forget the games consoles
Many of us don’t know one end of a games console from the other, but as well as gaming, they give access to the internet and streaming services. Players can play with and instantmessage strangers. With a new games console, you should set up parental controls immediately. Internetmatters.org has step-by-step how-to guides for the most popular consoles.
STEP 6 Safe social media FACEBOOK
To avoid a stranger befriending your child, head to Privacy Settings. Where it asks ‘who can send me friend requests,’ opt for ‘friends of friends’ so that only someone who has friends in common can make contact.
Make sure strangers can’t see any posts or photos or your child’s friends list by carefully going through the Privacy settings. Set the default to ‘friends’ only and don’t allow search engines to link to the profile.
To check how private the profile is, use the ‘view as’ tool (in Privacy Shortcuts) so you can see exactly what the profile looks like to others.
Timeline Review (in Settings) lets you vet any posts and photos that you’re tagged in before they are shown on your Timeline. You can decide whether you want them to appear.
This is a good tip for everyone. When you update your status, share photos or post anything on Facebook, you can decide who sees it by using the Audience Selector tool. This lets you share with a select audience rather than all your friends. Before you post something, click on the blue ‘friends’ button under the status box and choose ‘custom’ from the drop-down menu. You can create a list of specific people to share with or stop from seeing your post.
MESSENGER
With Facebook’s free messaging app, you can create groups for private chats and block anyone you want.
Instagram’s default setting is public so that everyone can see the photos you post. Fine for globe-trotting, lunch-photographing adults, but not for children. Ensure your child’s account is set to private, so only invited friends and family have access. Also, switch off location services in your child’s phone’s privacy settings to stop their whereabouts being published when they post a photo.
Like Messenger, this smartphone app is good for group chats. In the Privacy settings, make sure the Status is changed from Public to My Contacts so that your child’s photo, status and the last time they used the app is not visible to all. You can block people, too.