Crime Solutions
Searching the Internet and Child Safety
With ever increasing amounts of material – websites, images, video etc - on the internet, searching carefully is crucial, but how can parents and carers help children search safely? Most children use search engines to find things on the Internet. In fact research has found that search providers’ sites are the most visited sites among the majority of children and young people. In addition to the incredible positives and benefits that search brings, for example helping to research for school assignments, there is a risk to children searching the Internet of exposure to material that may be potentially harmful to them, or even material that is illegal. This document aims to help parents in their choice of search provider by using a checklist of questions to outline what is current good practice in relation to child safety for search providers, and to enable parents to be aware of what they can do to help their children search safer.
Title: Searching the Internet and Child Safety
Author: Home Office
Number of pages: 4
Date published: July 2006
Availability: Download full report
PDF 548Kb
Search engines enable the rapid search of the Internet for information, whether this information be text, image or sound. Searching consists of entering a word or words into a search box and clicking the search button, which sets in motion a search engine that automatically produces a list of the addresses of websites relevant to the words entered. Many search providers also offer the facility for the user to search for images, video and< audio content.
Some quick tips for safer search
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The more accurate your search is (ie using more than one relevant word), the more relevant the search results will be and thus the less likely that unwanted results will be prominently returned. For example, if you are searching for information on the planet Mercury, entering ‘planet mercury’ into the search box will get more relevant results than just entering ‘Mercury’.
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Take care to spell correctly when typing in a search. Even a small typing error can bring up unwanted results.
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Remember that not all the information in websites returned in searches is reliable. There are things you can do to assess the quality of the information you find (see www.quick.org.uk for example).
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There are two types of search results, (see above for more information on this):
Automated search results and
sponsored listings
Search providers usually separate and label these two types of search results, but it is important that you are aware of the difference and can differentiate them in the results of the search provider you are using.
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Whichever search provider you chose, it is important that you familiarise yourself with this provider’s service, finding out about the search provider’s safety advice, the search provider’s filter, how to contact the search provider, and how sponsored listings are differentiated from other search results.
Getting a copy
Download Searching the Internet and
Child Safety
Last update: 08 August 2006