Internet Watch Foundation

The IWF extended its remit and widened the representation on its Board at the beginning of last year in order to take positive action to help protect children from dangers on the Internet.

 

The new danger that we first warned of during a Government review of our service in 1998 was of paedophiles approaching children in chat rooms and other real time messaging technologies. From there we helped establish and lead a sub-group of the Internet Crime Forum which concentrated on chat issues.

 

We were happy to be involved in the Labour Government's Task Force to make the UK Internet safer for children. We have already started work on a major conference on chat dangers, a kite-marking scheme for child-safe chat facilities and leaflets for parents to be distributed through hardware and software retailers.

 

The latest Labour Party announcement gives further policy ideas on how this work might be extended in the next administration. We are sure that continued partnership between Government and industry, as pioneered in the UK with IWF, will continue to be the most effective way of working. We are happy to work with the new Government to test new ideas to tackle the serious problems that we work on. With the support of the industry that funds us and the other stakeholders, including children's charities, represented on our Board, we will do all we can to help to implement new policies which prove to be practical ways to help parents and teachers protect the children in their care.