The Byron Review

1. The Byron Review On 6 September 2007, the UK government commissioned a review of the risks children faced from exposure to harmful or inappropriate material on the internet or in video games.

2. The Byron Review consists of the development of a strategy with two core elements : • Better regulation - in the form of voluntary codes of practice (a set of rules or guidelines you set up yourself and follow) that industry can sign up to. • Better information and education where the role of government, law enforcement, schools and children services will be key. The council should review whether the law around harmful material on the internet such as suicide websites is appropriate and look at whether the regulations are appropriate or need to be reinforced. Develop an independent voluntary code of practice (a set of rules or guidelines you set up yourself and follow). All computers sold for home use should have graded parental controls and internet providers such as BT and Virgin Media should offer and advertise this when people sign up. The council should make sure that providers agree to make the level of search (e.g. safe or moderate) obvious and give users the option to “lock it” on. Every search engine should clearly display child safety information and save search settings on the front page of their website.

3. Properly founded public information and awareness campaign on child internet safety to change behaviour.Long-lasting education and children’s services pilot to improve children’s and parents’ skills around e-safety (internet safety). The information provided for parents should be found in one specific place rather than few different ones. 100% of school should have Acceptable use Policies that are regularly reviewed, monitored and agreed with parents and student. ‘Ofsted’ take steps to hold schools responsible on their performance of internet safety. Sustained, efforts by industry to increase parents’ understanding and use of age-ratings and controls on consoles. The age recruitments is to be extended to include those receiving 12+ ratings. The game raters (Pegi) should collaborate with BBFC (who are British Board of Film Classification) to create an appropriate age rating which would be on a back of all boxes. There should be focused efforts to monitor enforcement of the age ratings at the point of sale. The BBFC and Pegi develop a joint approach to rating online games and increasing safety standards for children and young people in the games, under the support of the UK Council for Child Internet safety.