The Cyber Trust Family Internet Safety Project
At The Cyber Trust – Family Internet Safety Project, we are dedicated to ensuring that families have the knowledge and tools to protect themselves online. Our mission is to provide resources and guidance to create a safer digital environment for everyone. The options available to parents and carers are described in the graphic below. Our project seeks to make sure that parents and carers can use tools to ensure maximum safety.
The focus for the Family Internet Safety Project is to promote the use of mobile phone and computer monitoring solutions which allow adults to monitor what their children are doing online and to intervene when an issue is identified which may put the child at risk. The first phase of the project is now complete. Our family survey returned over 200 responses from parents and carers.
Here is an audio supported survey presentation containing the data collected from our first survey of parents and carers, with some contextual audio to accompany the slides.
The survey makes clear that monitoring has a very low take-up with parents although most do try to use tools that are provided by the telecom companies.
What’s Next?
The next phase of our project can now build on the responses we captured in the survey. This infographic describes the options available which are represented in the survey data.
The lower levels of protection can still be affective to protect children on home networks or blocking certain content or communication. Monitoring allows parents to view what activity is taking place, manage access where required and receive alerts in real time based on a set of rules. It is this latter option that will be the focus of the net phase of our project
In The Media
One of our Trustees (DT) is becoming a regular contributor on BBC Radio Gloucestershire on this topic, most recently in The Breakfast show of 23 September 2024. A 6 minute recording is linked here: BBC Radio Gloucestershire Family Safety 230924
We have also featured on LBC Radio as a guest in Clare Foges’ programme of 16 March 2025 ahead of the launch of The Online Safety Act the next day (Although the Act was passed in 2023, it is only March 2025 and onwards that powers arrive that will apply to search services and social media). You can hear one of our Trustees (RN) discuss the issues with Clare and where The Cyber Trust Family Internet Safety project is positioned here (14 minutes): LBC Radio Online Safety 160225
There is also a related and interesting article in The Guardian from 16 March 2025: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/mar/16/how-tech-experts-keep-their-children-safe-online
We contributed to BBC Radio Gloucestershire’s and BBC TV Points West day about young people and online safety on Thursday 15th May 2025. The programmes involved radio, online and TV doing interviews with experts, police, school teachers and pupils throughout the day. The Cyber Trust (DT) did a 15 minute slot on the morning show with Nicky Price at 11 AM, available here: BBC Radio Gloucestershire Family Safety 150525
Contact Us
Our contact form is here: https://www.thecybertrust.org/contact-us/