Article by George Norman

On 11 Jun 2009

A new study conducted by Trend Micro, company that specializes in providing network antivirus and internet content security software, revealed that numerous parents are clueless about the dangers their children can expose themselves this summer while they stay at home and surf the internet. According to the study, 63% of the parents who took part in the test decided no to send their little ones to day care or summer camps and this raises the question related to the online safety of these children.

The study showed that 45% of parents do not have parental controls in the security software they have installed on their computer, or at least they do not know if they have a parental control feature. 30% of parents believe their children are protected from inappropriate online content (adult content, gambling, spam, viruses) and consequently they do not need to make use of the parental control feature included in various security software solutions.


The confidence these parents have in their children is commendable, but the simple truth of the matter is that children will be children and will want to access content they should not have access to. Keep in mind that children nowadays are more tech savvy than most parents; they were born with a computer in front of them and as such they have access all the online content available out there, which is often times inappropriate for a your child. In the past year alone, 40% of children ages 10 to 17 had accessed adult content online, according to a statistics published by Pediatrics magazine.

There is one other aspect you should keep in mind: children can and will do stupid things, and in this context it translates to the info they put out on there. I am talking about personal, confidential data that might be used by people with malicious intent; I am also talking about data (videos, images, text) that they do realize should not appear in the public eye, data that they will further down the road wish they had never put it online.

“As a busy, working parent of two 'cyber kids,' I can't always be around to monitor every second of their surfing habits. I encourage parents to install a security software program with parental control features that allow them to monitor their kids' online activities even while they're at work or on a business trip. I'm proud to represent a company that delivers smart and effective Internet protection for the home so that families can enjoy online activities to the fullest,” said Vice President of Consumer Marketing for Trend Micro, Carol Carpenter.



Tags: Trend Micro, Online Safety, Security, Parental Controls

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