T: 00:33 – Right, so I’m Tina Wright and I’m a CEOP ambassador

that means that I’ve done in depth training on how

perpetrators use the internet and the effects that it has on

young people and I’m also able to train other people.

S: 00:48 – What is CEOP and what are its aims?

T: 00:50 – So CEOP is child exploitation and online protection.

What it actually does is try to keep young people safe on the

internet and give parents’ guidance. It also is part of the

national crime agency, so therefore they pick up with the police

and other teams and then they can investigate and arrest

perpetrators.

S: 01:43 – What are the most common dangers that children and

parents face online?

T: 01:46- I suppose it is online grooming. Being hooked in to

radicalisation those types of things, a lot of that goes on

through the online gaming. Being groomed online by Facebook

and social media those types of things. With parents, I think it’s

more that parents aren’t keeping up with technology and

young people have been born with mobile phones and the

internet, whereas somebody of my age it wasn’t around.

S: 03:20- How do you feel about political involvement in the area

of online safety?

T: 03:25- I think sometimes behind the scenes there is an awful

lot of work going in CEOP and the other agencies. But I don’t

think that they’re ever going to be able to patrol and police the

dark web. Certain websites, again going back to the online

grooming and chat rooms, perpetrator give young people

websites that everybody uses every day, where there is a

gateway through to the dark web so I don’t think that anybody

can police that. It’s been incredibly difficult to police the

internet we have now. When you think of the fact that people

under 16 having mobile phones under contract at this moment

in time, is it legal? I don’t think politicians are keeping up with

technology and I think the law needs to change so I think there

is a lot of work to be done.

S: 04:31 -Are under 16 year olds not allowed to have contract

phones?

T: 04:34- No you have to be 16 to have a contract phone. So all

the kids in year 11 and year 10 and year 8 and putting pictures

of bits of their body. The implications of that is it’s on their

parent’s contract.

S: 05:50- What are children’s impact on their parent’s digital

footprint?

T: 05:57- The way the law stands at the moment is that anyone

under 16 can’t have their own contract, telephone contract,

obviously because they don’t have a bank account and things

like that. So that all goes on their parent’s contract, parents

take out the contract phone, they give it to their child. The child

might take explicit pictures of themselves, sexting is quite a big

thing in Year 8 Year 9 at the moment. From that, it comes to

mind that I’m a child protection officer at the school. I follow

up with that, then I speak to the parents and I say to them you

do realise that this is a contract phone that all this traffic of

basically child pornography is in your name, so it then leaves

that footprint, so if that phone is investigated for any

reason…so that sort of where the law is not caught up really,

because it’s still under the parents name. Now sometimes,

perpetrators can be picked up from that, but normally 99% of

the time it’s actually kid’s sexting each other but it’s on a

contract phone that is under their parents.

S: 07:35- Do the dangers of the internet outweigh the benefits?

T: 07:38- I thinks it’s like anything else to be honest, if it’s used

wisely. I think parents need to take responsibility for what

children and young people are doing, and the more we get it

out there and the more we talk about it, I think the better

prepared young people are to know the dangers and I think

while we keep it all quiet and don’t talk about it, it’s a bit like

with all the prevent strategy and things like that, that are all

building into child protection these days that if you talk about

the dangers, then the children are aware and they can protect

themselves. At the moment if you don’t tell a young child that

texting and sexting and online bullying isn’t the right thing to

do, then they don’t see it any different as talking to people, so I

think they cross over quite a lot. I think that the more

information we give young people, the more informed

decisions they can make. I don’t think that bullying online is any

different to being bullied on the yard, on the playground or in

the workplace. It’s going to keep happening in many different

ways, but I also think with phones and iPads and digital bullying

that parents need to be able to take those devices away at

night, so if this is going on, it isn’t going on all through the night

because it can go on 24 7 whereas it wouldn’t if it was actually

face to face, there would be a break in it. Whereas sometimes

it just is continuous and young people have committed suicide,

and things like that has been happening. So I think that parents

need to take responsibility just as they would if it was a physical

thing that’s going on, and it all needs to be reported because

lots of reporting buttons on websites, I actually wonder how

many people feel confident to use them.