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E-safety for schools is about more than safeguarding the pupils

In the past, the most abuse that teachers could expect was maybe a bit of cheeky back chat, which would be quickly dealt with, with nothing much more than a stern word and a detention and if parents asked the child why he/she had been detained then their reaction would be along the lines of “Good! I hope you learn your lesson and don’t do it again?”

These days, however, there has been a quantum leap in the attitude to teachers by some parents and, digital technology, along with all the positive opportunities it offers, has provided these parents with a sinister outlet to vent their anger when they find out that their ‘pride–and-joy’ has been reprimanded (nearly always wrongly, in their eyes) for some misdemeanour.

Increasingly, teachers are having to endure online abuse from not only students, but their respective parents as well. This growing abuse includes personal insults, accusations of paedophilia or of having sex with students, as well as racist, sexist and homophobic remarks and threats of violence towards teaching staff.

Incidents include a parent informing a teacher on social media that they were “rubbish” and that she was a “bitch” who attempted to kill their daughter by making her do P.E. and not allowing her to use her inhaler – an accusation that the teacher vehemently denied.

Another member of staff, who was heavily pregnant at the time, received vile comments such as “I hope she gets cancer” and “ugly [expletive] bitch”. She also had an abusive Facebook account established in her name. Other teaching staff described how pictures, which have been taken of them in the classroom, without their knowledge were uploaded and then commented on in a flurry of expletive-laden insults.

Now, some may say, “Well, it’s just kids being mischievous; teachers should have a ‘thick skin’ and be used to this sort of behaviour”. But, in reality, as one teacher experienced, who would put up with being sent sexually explicit abusive messages over a prolonged period of nine months? I would hazard a guess, not many!

But surely, don’t teachers report these instances to their senior management team?

Yes, they do but, as the unions report, in an educational world ruled by league tables and Ofsted ratings, schools and head teachers are reluctant to get involved because they don’t want to annoy parents and risk the reputation of their school.

In a survey conducted by the teaching union, the NASUWT, it reported that 60% of 1500 respondents had suffered abusive comments on social media sites by students and parents in comparison to just 21% in 2014. Worryingly, this rise appeared to be entirely attributable to an increase in the number of parents posting abusive remarks.

As a consequence of this problem, coupled with a myriad of other pressing issues within the teaching profession, research in ‘The Independent’ in early April 2015, reported that around 40% of teachers quit within their first year when the harsh realities of life in the classroom become too much.

The issue of the online abuse of teachers is a very real problem that, if not dealt with urgently, will only get worse and potentially contribute to the growing crisis within the teaching profession, but, if it is to have any chance of success, it will require a cohesive plan and the collaboration of stakeholders from education, Government and the social media industry.

If you would like to share your experience on this topic, please use the comments section below.

Parents are not talking to children about the right online safety issues

The NSPCC asked more than 600 primary school children what information they needed to stay safe online. More than 80% said online privacy settings on mobile apps and games was a topic they thought their parents should cover in an online safety conversation. And just over half (54%) opted for location settings, which can prevent sex offenders tracking children.

However, although eight out of ten parents told the NSPCC in a YouGov poll that they knew what to say to their child to keep them safe online, only 28% had actually mentioned privacy settings to them and just 20% discussed location settings.

The charity is now urging parents to make sure their online knowledge is up to date by checking out its updated Net Aware guide, published this week.

Among twelve sites that have now been added to the guide are Tapatalk and Pheed, which many parents may not be familiar with, plus well-known games like Call of Duty that allows users to chat online.

The latest websites, apps and games featured in Net Aware were reviewed by a panel of parents and all were rated poorly in terms of how easy it was to change privacy settings, report concerns about abuse or bullying, and find safety advice.

The guide now covers a total of sixty social networking sites, apps and games popular with children and is free to access at www.net-aware.org.uk

Claire Lilley, NSPCC head of child safety online, said: “If parents aren’t talking to children about things like privacy settings on social networking sites it can leave them at risk of online grooming. We’ve seen horrendous cases where offenders take a scattergun approach, targeting hundreds of children at a time online, often posing as another young person.

“It’s important parents have the knowledge to talk in detail with children about safety settings. Minecraft is one game that is much safer for children once the privacy settings have been adjusted. Our updated Net Aware guide is packed with straightforward advice that will help parents stay up to date with their children’s digital lives.”

Following the launch of the NSPCC’s online safety campaign in January nearly 400,000 parents have spoken to their children about staying safe online. However, it seems that many parents have gaps in their online knowledge and don’t talk about the right issues with their children.

For example, Tinder, Facebook Messenger, Yik Yak and Snapchat were all rated as risky by children, with the main worry being talking to strangers. However, for the same sites the majority of parents did not recognise that the sites could enable adults to contact children. Parents tended to worry more about sexual or violent content or bad language.

The NSPCC is calling for all social networking sites, apps and games used by children to provide easy ways for children and parents to report abuse, attempts at grooming or concerns about content.

The charity also wants to see all online accounts for under-16s:

The Internet Watch Foundation has identified and assisted the removal of 137% more webpages depicting child sexual abuse last year, than the year before.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) recently launched its trends and analysis on the global picture of child sexual abuse image distribution online. The IWF Annual Report 2014 reveals that its new ability to actively seek out the content, which was given in April 2014, has been effective in identifying of more criminal material than ever before. The IWF is the only Hotline in the world with the ability to do this.

The IWF is a charity, and self-regulatory body set up in 1996 by the online industry. It is the UK’s Hotline for reporting child sexual abuse imagery online and is funded by 117 companies and organisations (https://www.iwf.org.uk/members/current-members). Due to the increased funding these companies gave the IWF, it recruited more Internet Content Analysts last year, taking the total from four, to 12.

The IWF takes reports of suspected criminal content from the public, which includes members of the public, police officers and IT professionals.

Coupled with its new ability to actively search for the images and videos using intelligence-based tactics, it was able to assist with the removal 31,266 URLs of child sexual abuse last year, compared to 13,182 in 2013. A URL can contain one, or many thousand images and videos.

Global speed of removal
Less than 0.3% (95 URLs) of the imagery identified last year was hosted in the UK (in 1996, 18% was UK-hosted) and 95% was removed within a day, often within two hours. Last year, most was hosted in North America (56%) and Europe including Russia (41%). The speed at which countries are removing the content has increased.

After 10 days

• 91% of URLs are removed within Europe (86% in 2013);
• 72% of URLs are removed within North America (68% in 2013);
• 50% of URLs are removed from other locations around the world (44% in 2013)

When the IWF identifies a child sexual abuse URL hosted in another country, it notifies that country’s hotline, or law enforcement agency. It then repeatedly chases up with that country until the URL is removed.

Abused services
Many legitimate online services are abused by those wishing to distribute child sexual abuse imagery.

• Image hosting services (where users can upload images and make them available via a unique
URL) were most abused last year (from 5,594 URLs in 2013 to 19,710 URLs in 2014).
• File host, or cyberlockers (which are online file hosting services, cloud storage services or online
file storage providers) saw a 299% increase in abuse last year, compared to 2013 (from 1,400 URLs
in 2013 to 5,582 URLs in 2014).

IWF CEO Susie Hargreaves, said: “Our ability to actively seek out child sexual abuse imagery created a significant step-change in the effectiveness of the IWF.

“We have a mission to protect victims of sexual abuse from having their images repeatedly viewed. The more content we can identify and work with others to get removed, the bigger the benefit to those victims.

“We are also here to help the internet industry from being abused and the online industry in the UK and increasingly, globally, is really stepping up to help us remove this imagery but we know there are many more companies who are either yet to recognise they have an issue, or are being too slow to respond.

“It is not good enough for those companies to allow the burden of responsibility to fall on a socially responsible few. This year we will ensure they are armed with the knowledge, information and support they need to protect themselves and benefit all internet users and victims of sexual abuse.”

*A cyberlocker is a file hosting service, cloud storage service or online file storage provider. Cyberlockers are internet hosting services specifically designed to host users’ files.

To download a copy of the report, visit the IWF website