Scottish Stakeholder Group on Internet Safety

We've been actively engaged with Government , Police, Education Scotland and a range of agencies through the national stakeholder group for the last two years. Early this month  I was delighted to bring Ted Hastings along to the meeting on this occasion to provide an update on our qualification developments in this area. Thanks to some European funding and some innovative thinking we set the pace across the UK in this area five years ago. We've been grateful throughout for the mult-agency support we have had. At UK level we work closely with CEOP.

One of the reports highlighted at meeting was from OfComm showing the changing media consumption habits of young people.   (Thanks to OfCom for image used above)

• 8-11 year olds spend 8 Hours per week On-Line
• 12-15 year olds spend 15 Hours per week On-Line
• A third of 8-12 years olds have on-line profiles in Social Networking sites - where technically they should not be 

There is a clear feeling that just like teaching learners and citizens to swim - so we need to guide them to navigating the open waters of the Internet safely.

I'll not report all here-  but lots of statistics on growth of digital identity theft, fraud, stalking , bullying , blackmail and intimidation , grooming of young people -  all going on at national and international level. But reassuringly too data on how police are making inroads.

There were warnings this quarter about some activities on specific services like Meebo and  reports of a disturbing facebook service "take this lollipop" which through the wonders of mash-ups can present a video of a knife carrying maniac studying pictures of you ( culled from your profile ) before appearing to arrive outside your house - thanks to an ingenious overlaid image using google street view ( having culled your location from your profile). Was apparently all the rage over Halloween but really scared many folks.

Finally a useful date for diaries 22nd March 2012 Heriot Watt University will host E-Safety Live in Scotland
Should add to lots of great advice available on the internet - Google has some good resources for surfers of all ages.