Campaign to Protect Children From Internet Predators, NY
Campaign aims to protect children from Internet predators 8/29/2006 5:00 AM By: Adam Balkin The statistics are scary. "One in three kids online talks to someone they don't know. One in seven kids online is approached and sexually solicited online," said Priscilla Natkins of the Ad Council. "And for the most part these kids, and for the most part these girls, don't share the information with their parents." The statistics are from the U.S. Department of Justice, which has tapped the Ad Council and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to create a new series of public service advertisements. The spots will warn children about the dangers of putting too much information about themselves online. "Short of scare tactics, we want sort of an alarm to go off in their heads that the activities they do right now might be inappropriate and harmful to them," said Natkins. It's an alarm Lt. John Otero has been sounding for years as head of the NYPD's Computer Crimes Squad. He often visits schools and shows kids how easy it is for a predator to find everything they want to about a child from social networking sites like MySpace. Often times, a predator can find out information even if the child lists just a fake username, with no personal information about themselves. "Even though he didn't have his information on that account, his friends did, so the first thing I did was start digging down into what his friends do, and I found out what school he goes to," said Lt. Otero. "Then one of them had him on his link, so I found out his last name. So then I go on the Internet and I find out how many kids are in this school by this last name. The whole process took me about three minutes." Lt. Otero said a few minutes later he also had the child's age and home address. Protecting children online Perhaps the greatest tool ever to be made available to child predators is the Internet. But as Adam Balkin explains, a new effort aims to make that tool a little less useful. "If you're a parent check the profiles on AOL, MySpace, check the profile out and take two minutes to see where else that leads you. Go and see what friends they are linking to," he said. "Consider buying programs that will help you keep track of what they're doing. Kids, minors, don't have an expectation of privacy. Parents are allowed to put software in there where they can track what the kids are doing. They can track the emails, they can track the conversations or chats." But perhaps the most important tip for parents is, whether they're tech savvy or not, keep the family computer in a public space within your home like your living room. That way you can peek over your child's shoulder to see what they're doing, and the child knows that even if you're not in the room, you have potential to sneak back in and peek over their shoulder. The new ad campaign, that'll remind us of all those tips and pitfalls and then some, is set to launch as early as December. http://news10now.com/content/features/technology/?ArID=77784&SecID=97