Online parental responsibility

Thousands of parents are exposing their children to online risks by setting up social networking accounts for them, a charity has warned.
The National Children’s Bureau said that 45 per cent of parents with pre-teenage children have set up a Facebook account on their behalf, flouting the rules banning under-13s from using the site.
A poll conducted by the charity’s Anti-Bullying Alliance and the online security company McAfee, also found that more than half of children are allowed on the internet unsupervised.
The research, released to mark the start of anti-bullying week, found that, while just one in ten parents believes that their children are safe online,one third of parents admit they have not talked to them about internet safety.
Raj Samani, online safety expert at McAfee, said: “Setting up these social profiles without installing parental controls or having conversations about how to stay safe online means children are ill-prepared to understand and deal with issues such as cyber-bullying.”

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/technology/internet/article3924590.ece