Internet Safety

Did you know that:

• Sixty-one percent of students admit to using the Internet unsafely or inappropriately.
  
• Twenty percent of middle and high school students have met face-to-face with someone they first met online.
  
• Thirty-one percent of those age K - 12 who use the Internet have the skill to circumvent Internet filtering software.
  
• Thirty-four percent of youth ages 10 – 17 had unwanted exposure to sexual material—nudity and sexual acts.
  
• Only 27 percent of the youth who encountered unwanted sexual material told a parent or guardian.

Such statistics are disturbing, particularly when we realize that the dangers are presented to our children right in our own homes--a place we expect to be safe. As children get older, they are less likely to share information with parents about what they are doing online. In fact, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, close to 30 percent of children who encountered unwanted sexual material told a parent or guardian. If the encounter was defined as distressing - episodes that made them feel very or extremely upset or afraid - 42 percent told a parent or guardian. Tragically, young people can actually feel like their online acquaintances (who they have never met face-to-face) are truly friends. The Internet is a place where online predation of children by adults posing as children happens with chilling frequency.  It is imperative that parents be educated about what their children are doing online.

In 2007and 2008, I co-sponsored, and the Senate passed, a resolution declaring June as National Internet Safety Month. It encourages Americans to become educated about dangers posed by Internet predators to children and teens.  I also co-sponsored S. 431, the Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators (KIDS) Act. It passed the Senate in May 2008 and requires the registration of email and instant messaging addresses of sex offenders on a sex offender’s profile on the National Sex Offender Registry.  Failure to register such identifiers will be punishable by a fine or imprisonment.  The KIDS Act also requires the U.S. Department of Justice to maintain a system allowing commercial social networking website companies to compare identifiers of registered or potential users of those sites to a list of identifiers of registered sex offenders.  The companies would be immune from civil liability if they used this system.  The bill also makes it a federal crime for anyone who is at least 18 years old to misrepresent their age when communicating over the Internet with the intent to engage in or facilitate criminal sexual contact with a minor.

Useful Links

These links are useful sources of information for parents, teens and children about online safety, and remember, while the Internet has become largely indispensable for many business, consumer and research transactions, it is also a haven for those who could do terrible psychological and physical harm to our children.

Take a Bite Out of Cyber Crime: Learn how to identify and protect against threats like identity theft and online predators

Netsmartz Workshop: Learn how to keep children and teens safe on the Internet

Proposed National Guidelines for Sex Offender Notification and Registration. The Department of Justice has put together proposed guidelines for SMART (Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, & Tracking). The Department of Justice is taking public comments on the proposal, which was made in May 2007.

Project Safe Childhood: This effort, through the Department of Justice, aims to combat the proliferation of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation crimes against children.

i-Safe Inc. maintains information about Internet safety education and is endorsed by the U.S. Congress. You can access information directed at various audiences: Kids & Teens, Educators, Outreach & Parents and Law Enforcement. i-Safe recently provided statistics that can provide parents with additional information regarding how children view the Internet. To see Idaho-specific survey data, please click here.