Protection from illegal content
To avoid the risk of being exposed to potentially illegal content we recommend the following precautions:
- Do not open emails from people you do not know or when you don’t recognise the email address
- Similarly, do not open attachments or pictures you receive from unknown email addresses
- Ensure you have an effective filter on your PC to stop unwanted content. For more information see our filtering section. Some ISPs provide a ‘walled garden’ that only allows access to vetted and filtered websites, eliminating the potential to view or be exposed to illegal content and some inappropriate or harmful legal content which might be unsuitable for minors.
- If children or young people are regularly using Search Engines, you can set each Search Engine site to a 'strict' level of filtering. This limits what a search will bring up when entering keywords. Check your options with your prefered Search Engine site. Once you have chosen a search filtering level, check these settings regularly to ensure they have not been amended or switched off.
- Some sites are labelled which means the content on that site has been described in accordance with the Internet Content Rating Association's criteria. This criteria is based on the descriptive vocabulary, often referred to as "the ICRA questionnaire." Content providers check which of the 45 elements in the questionnaire are present or absent from their websites. This then generates a short piece of computer code known as an ICRA label that the webmaster then adds to his/her site. Users, especially parents of young children, can then use filtering software to allow or disallow access to web sites based on the information declared in the label. For more information see our labelling section.
- Your school, college, university, company or employer, hosting company and mobile operator, should have policies in place for dealing with potentially illegal internet content. Do not be afraid to ask what preventative and reactive mechanisms they have put in place.
Viewing illegal images online can carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison in the UK.
Curiosity is normal on the internet, but being exposed to unwanted and potentially illegal images is not acceptable.
Child abuse images reflect just that: abuse of children and as such, should always be reported.
Page Created: Thu, October 7th, 2004
Page Modified: Tue, May 10th, 2005
