Maintaining the safety of students online is a key part of a school’s overall efforts to safeguard students.   When I first entered teaching, this was relatively straight forward.   Students only access to devices in schools was likely to be the PCs in the computer suites where they had limited ability to make changes due to not having administrative access.   In addition, the school would have internet filtering in place to protect the students, where the students main tendency was to seek out games as opposed to any other inappropriate content.   I remember as the ICT teacher in one school, regularly having a look at the schools internet statistics and reviewing the most commonly hit sites for signs of games or other inappropriate content.   It was normally games I would find and therefore games I would block.    For those students who decided they wanted to bypass the schools restrictions the tools available were limited and the required knowledge to make them work was often greater than that which the majority of students possessed.

Fast forward around 15 years, to today, and the students are more aware of the content which is available on the internet, plus the search tools are better.  As such I suspect it is no longer games which are the most prevalent inappropriate website category in schools.     In addition, in many schools, students now come to school with their own device, either a device required by the school or a mobile phone.   The tools available to bypass school restrictions are now easily accessible, numerous and also easy to use.   These tools often aimed at supporting the right to privacy can easily be used for other purposes such as hiding malicious or inappropriate online activity.   I note for example how VPN providers can now be seen advertising their products on TV or heard on the radio.    In the last couple of days, as mentioned at the start of this post, I have also heard of the easy availability of software aimed at allowing individuals to setup websites on the dark web to anonymously share content without fear of it being traced back.

The technical solutions of the past, filtering and monitoring, are no longer sufficient as simply put, monitoring and filtering doesn’t work.    This isn’t just a school problem, this is a societal issue.   The societal issue is beyond the scope of this post however within schools we cannot sit idly by, we need to take action.   We need to take a wide view of online safety which with the removal of the ICT curriculum, somewhere these issues were often discussed and explored with students, has become increasingly difficult.   Time needs to be found to explore the issues around living in a digital world, to explore online safety, ethics, privacy, security, etc however sadly for now I am not sure where there is space for this in the already packed curriculum.    Given this, for me, all schools need to ask themselves what they do in relation to online safety, and what more could they do?   This is a question that should be asked at a senior level.   It is also important that schools get together, not just to share good practice but to collectively work together to ensure we strike a balance between preparing students for the technological world and keeping them safe.  We are all in the same boat and therefore maybe we need to find a collective approach to a collective problem.

The report as referenced in an article published by ITV identifies that students find terms and conditions of social media sites “impenetrable”.     Having myself looked at some site terms and conditions I find this far from surprising.   The terms and conditions are largely written from a legal perspective to cover the provider against litigation and therefore tend to be quite long in length, quite complex in language and also written for those with a legal background or approaching from a legal perspective as opposed to a lay person never mind a child.   The terms and conditions are written for their perceived user, being a lawyer hoping to sue or seek damages or a lawyer defending against such a suit.     They are not designed to be informative to the end user of the service in relation to informing them as to their rights and responsibilities, unless the end user has hired a lawyer and is pursuing a suit.

An article on the ISC website written by Caroline Dunn, a deputy head teacher, hits the nail on the head in stating that adults “do not necessarily have a greater understanding of emerging technologies” than the children referenced in the commissioner’s report.   The Children’s commissioner had focused on the fact that terms and conditions were not written with children in mind, yet children were using the services to which these terms relate.  For me, and for Mrs Dunn, the focus was too narrow as in reality the majority of adults are no better able to understand these terms and conditions.  If we consider that adults model behaviour which students will follow, it is concerning that adults often accept terms without reading them, plus also are unable to understand them even should they choose to read them.    I must include myself in the above.

The issue being discussed here is not related to the education of children to use the internet safely.     I do however acknowledge that for children this is even more important in relation to safeguarding.  It is regarding the need for any user, adult or child, to understand their rights and responsibilities with regards using a service.   Clearly the terms do not meet this need as they are aimed at those of a legal background.   The BBC reported on a government select committee back in 2014 identifying that terms where often too long and complex however the report from the Children’s commissioner seems to suggest that little or no progress has been made since then.    I believe this is due to the fact that services will always need to have some legal protection, in the form of terms and conditions, to protect them where someone seeks legal recourse against a service.

It also worries me the focus on a perceived issue in relation to children when in fact that issue is bigger in scale.   The issue includes adults as well who are no better at understanding a services terms.    We see a similar tendency in relation to online privacy and safety, with a focus on the dangers to children when in fact the issue is much bigger and impacts on adults as well.   It could be that the danger to children is perceived as larger hence the focus on children, however equally it could just be sensational reporting.    Also how can we address the dangers associated with internet use by children, if the adults, their parents, who are the ones present at home when children do the majority of their internet surfing don’t truly understand the technology or the terms and conditions.

In relation to the terms and conditions issue I wonder whether the answer is as simple as a rights and responsibilities statement for each service in addition to their legal terms and conditions.   This would be written in understandable language, accessible to the average person including children.   In relation to the wider issues with regards understanding the implications of using a particular service I don’t have an answer, as clearly there is a requirement either to change the internet, good luck with that, or to educate or train internet and service users in general, which is ambitious to say the least.    We continue to learn the good and bad of the internet through using it!

Sources:

Social Media told to simplify terms and conditions (Nov 2014), http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30234789

Children ‘left to fend for themselves’ against bullying and grooming online (Jan 2017),  http://www.itv.com/news/2017-01-05/children-left-to-fend-for-themselves-against-bullying-and-grooming-online/

The internet is not designed for children… or adults! (Jan 2017),  https://www.isc.co.uk/media-enquiries/isc-blogs/the-internet-is-not-designed-for-children-or-adults/