Phones 4u launches safe surfing advice site for parents

Rating: Mobile operators can fix it for you

Thanks to the now deceased DJ, Jimmy Saville, currently in the UK there’s a massive focus on the safety of children. Which makes it an ideal time for High Street retailer, Phones 4u, to launch an information hub/micro-site for British parents on mobile internet safety. GoMobile News was completely unaware, for example, that all five UK operators offer parental controls to their customers. The site offers parents useful advice on how to ensure a mobile operator’s safe surfing controls are installed. Plus it gives examples of mobile apps which can help monitor a child’s use of the mobile internet. Shame it doesn’t spell out which apps run on which mobile OS since many kids have a BlackBerry thanks to the popularity of RIM’s BBM messaging service.Here’s some useful stats which have been unearthed following research conducted by ICM on behalf of Phones 4u. … “By the time they are 11 years old, 95 per cent of children own their own mobile, and our research has revealed that up to two thirds of all children aged 5 to 16 own a phone,” the company says.

It goes on to reveal that 88 per cent of parents consider their children to be open with them about mobile phone usage.

However, 71 per cent of parents admit that they haven’t used an internet safety tool.

29 per cent revealed they aren’t aware of such tools. Yet when offered information on these tools, 55 per cent went on to use one.

Will Gardner, CEO of Childnet, commented, “The UK Mobile Operators have provided tools to help parents filter out age-inappropriate content, and we hope that this new guidance from Phones 4u can help highlight these tools to their customers.”

Phones 4u’s micro site can be found here. Bizarrely the site isn’t mobile friendly.