CEOP – What do they do?

As CEOP has provided support and advice for the company I work for and are all over the flyers and leaflets in work, i've often wondered what exactly it is they do, I thought i'd create a post while I found out!. Although I've heard of CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) as it's a pretty well known name now e.g. i've heard it quite a lot on the news, I don't know a great deal about them, apart from when they were in the news a year or two ago, trying to persuade websites such as Bebo & Facebook to install “panic buttons” on their webpages, and i'm sure many people have roughly the same amount of knowledge.

CEOP's main objective is to eradicate the sexual abuse of children. The organisation consists of police officers who have specialist experience of tracking and prosecuting child sex offenders and are working towards their objective with seconded staff from organisations such as the NSPCC, sponsored by companies such as VISA and SERCO as well as experts from government and corporations such as Microsoft who offer specialist advice and guidance.

CEOP's work is far more in depth than just tracking convicted and potential sex offenders both at home and abroad though, they study how offenders operate and think, how children and young people behave and how technological advances are developing. Which is well needed in today's modern world.

As i've already mentioned (and this may also be how you've heard of CEOP),  A “ClickCEOP” panic button was created to help protect vunerable kids online which has been installed on several websites that young people use including GreatBritishKids.com, Facebook, Bebo to name a few. The idea first came from CEOP's former CEO Jim Gamble who called for the panic button to be installed in March 2010. The idea behind it is that if a child felt uncomfortable or at risk online, they could simply click a button and it would be reported to the police via their ThinkUKnow website where it could then be investigated by police officers.

So what actually happens when the button is pressed? Well...

Statistics

CEOP first came together in 2006 and there's no denying that the work they continue to do is invaluable, just take a look at these statistics:

Key:

CP = Children Protected due to the help of CEOP

A = Arressts made thanks to intelligence passed on from CEOP

SO = High risk sex offender networks disrupted and dismantled. 

 

Looking forward, CEOP has three priorities this year:

• Prevent – to make it more difficult to exploit children.
• Protect – Identify and safeguard children who are at risk.
• Pursue – Identify offenders and stop or disrupt their activity.

And they will also be dealing with six high threats this year which is what they will be mainly focusing on:

•  How children behave online which is putting them at risk online.
•  Children who are particularly vunerable to abuse.
•  Use of developing technology by offenders and those who are vulnerable
•  Offenders who exploit children
•  Offenders who make, distribute or access child abuse material; and 
•   The trafficking of children. 

References:

CEOP

www.ceop.police.uk

If you would like to know more about CEOP then visit their website. It has information on Most Wanted lists and the child sex offender disclosure scheme.

ThinkUKnow

www.thinkuknow.com

This website contains information for parents, carers, teachers and trainers, but it also contains useful information for different age groups of kids too. The 8-10 section has information about how to stay in control on different devices that many young kids have today, such as mobiles and online games. It's worth a look if you're a parent too – just to keep yourself updated!

Hope you've found this post useful. Thanks for reading! CEOP are also hosting a “Safer Internet Day” on the 7^th of Feb 2012, so i'll be looking into what they've got planned in my next post.

@Lizmundo

NB: CEOP suggest that if a child is in immediate danger and anyone is concerned then they need to contact 999.

Thoughts & Experiences Of Lizmundo On Internet Safety

When I was about 12/13 years old, I started using the internet at home, my parents obviously knew a lot less than I did too, as neither of them had even turned a computer on until a few years ago. We didn't have anything in the house before then and in school we could only use Microsoft Encarta – brilliant fun! When we finally got broadband at home, I used to use sites like Yahoo! Chat and spoke to quite a few dodgy characters at the time, even a few paedophiles actually, although I didn't find out who they were until a few years later.

Internet safety, and reporting suspicious people online wasn't as well heard of back then so I didn't realise I could have reported them. The Government set up CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection) to deal with this and is a great source of safety material and help for all age groups. Knowing what I know now about what goes on, It's very scary to think that kids could be in the same situation today that I was 10 years ago.

I worry about my nieces & nephew using the internet as people can be so deceiving. It's so easy for kids to chat to complete strangers over the internet these days. Does your child have a Wii, an Xbox or a Playstation? All of these have chat functions, where the kids can play games with anyone around the world. They can chat to each other in real time and now even speak over headsets. Teaming up to play games is not only fun but teaches kids how to work together as a group to win a task. So I get the attraction, but all parents need to take an interest when their kids are playing online and ensure they are only playing with their true friends that they know personally. They would not ask a stranger in the street to come into their house to play a game! so why would you let them on the internet?

That's why I love working for greatbritishkids.com so much, It's only week 3, but I’m really getting stuck in. My job role is Office Supervisor, so I get to do all the normal stuff, like dealing with the mail and making sure the office filing is all in order, but I also get to monitor the site. This is where I get to check that the content of the site is appropriate for our members. The other day a member uploaded a pop song for everybody to hear, but when I listened to it, it was uncensored, the dreaded F word was being used again in a pointless fashion, so I had to take the tune down and tell the member why. I know that this website is much safer than the others because I'm doing the "keeping safe".

Yesterday the website had a huge boom of activity from new users (a local school had gotten wind of us and had handed out leaflets to every kid.) I had a pop up message from a new member, Ben*, that had logged in for the first time. He said that he loved the website as it was just like facebook. He also wanted me to play games with him. Since new members can't contact anyone on the website until they're verified, he could only contact me, so I accepted the game and he beat me. I'm no good at pool in real life either.

I also had another new member contact me to ask if she could be instantly verified by webcam. Now this was my first time with a live member, as my training had been done just using other members of staff, so this was it, I cleared my throat, checked my hair was looking good (not much I could have done with it anyway, it's always fuzzy from the dreadlocks!) and I pressed the button to launch the webcam. My face popped up in a box, then the box expanded to show a black screen, nothing just black! So I sent Alice* a text chat message, asking if she had turned on her webcam, she replied "w8, am doin it now, i'm 10. Then as if by magic, her little face appeared on my screen! amazing! I said hi Alice, what's your date of birth? she told me and I wrote it down, then I asked her one more question and that was it! in under 20 seconds little 10 year old Alice had been checked to make sure she was under 18 and was a real kid. I had a flash back to when I was first using the internet and all the horrible experiences I had with paedos pretending to be other kids, I came over all warm and felt really good about myself, that by me checking Alice was Alice, I had made her safer and all of the other members on the site. I know that when Ben gets verified and wants to talk to Alice, that they will both know that they are kids and feel safer.

So that was it, My first webcam with a member! I changed her status from 'restricted ' to 'unrestricted' and hey presto Alice was able to use the whole site!

I'm just glad I'm playing my small part now by making sure kids have positive experiences with the internet where they can be themselves, be creative and make new friends.

Let me know if you like my blog, I'm getting back into this and want to continue writing about my experiences.

@Lizmundo

*I've made the names up to protect the identity of the innocents lol.

Lizmundo's Research Into Kids' Websites: Moshi Monsters

Hi again, I've been working in my new role at GreatBritishKids.com for about a week now and so far it's been fantastic! I've been helping to monitor the site and researching into childrens' websites. Following on from my last post with regards to the safety of other websites for children including Social Networking sites that children may use (even though they're underage), I've been asked to review “Moshi Monsters” by a user on one of my other blogs.

This is a little background info on Moshi Monsters that I have pulled from their site:

“Moshi Monsters is a free online game for kids, where they may adopt a monster and look after it. Kids whose parents give us their approval can become 'users' on our site, and can adopt a Moshi Monster. Kids care for their monster by solving puzzle games, which earn their monster virtual rewards called Rox. Kids can spend Rox on virtual items like food, furniture and other treats and toys for their monster. Over time their monster will increase in level, be able to visit new locations in Monstro City, and earn all kinds of in-game rewards for playing. Monster owners will also be able to make friends with other owners and leave messages on their pages. “

I created an account with Moshi Monsters (which I have since deleted) to have a look around the site to see what sort of features they have, all I had to do was enter a username, an email address and my age (I even entered my age as 22). Next I had to click an activation link in my email address which gave me access to the website. Once activated, you can create a virtual monster (called a Moshi) to “adopt” and look after.

Once you have created your monster, you are then taken to your “house” where you can keep items you may buy in the online gift shop or bring your virtual friends around. You can meet friends by using the map on the side of the screen to navigate around the site. Navigating around the site was quite easy, you can enter places to meet other users (Moshi's) and request to add them as a friend. Once you have friends on the site you can send them messages on the pin board in their “houses”. (These messages are supposed to be filtered through their system, however users can choose to report anything they don't like to the moderating team who will review the message). Users can also post on forums and respond to each others posts. These also go though a review before being posted.

Disadvantages (in my opinion) of Moshi Monsters were:

• The site is very childlike, this may be what younger children are looking for generally, but children who like to act a little more grown up will end up going in search of other websites that older relatives or friends may be on.
• The website is supposed to only be available to a new user once parents have activated the link in their own email account, however if a child has their own account or has access to their parent's then they could easily gain access themselves without consulting anyone that they're signing up.
• Only basic features of the site are free. If a child wants to have the full features of the site, e.g. customising your character, having the ability to have more than 16 friends then they have to pay a fee (£4.95 one month subscription, 6 months £23.95 or yearly £29.95). This may not be suitable for households on low income or with more than one child.
• I saw a post on the forum from a user that was titled: “i havent eaten 4 17hrs!!!!!!!” and then commented on the post saying “i dont eat anything frm 5pm”, later on in the post after being questioned why they were posting that information, the user simply said “i jsut fink im fat but im thin thats the reason y i dont eat and im starving now but i wont eat”. Although I reported this comment to the “Moshi Monsters Team”, I do wonder what support that child will have, if their parents know about the problem, and what impact it will have on the other users on the site.

Advantages (in my opinion) of Moshi Monsters were:

• Moshi Monsters currently has 50 m users worldwide – and UK based Mind Candy is estimated to pull in over US$100m
• The colours & the fact children can look after a “pet” on the site will keep them entertained while possibly teaching them responsibility & educating them at the same time.
• The cheapest subscription to Moshi Monsters is only £4.95 a month & you can also buy game cards so kids could buy these out of their pocket money if they wanted to.
• Possibly a good way of introducing very small children how to use the computer/internet in a safe way.

How I think this site compares to GreatBritishKids.com:

• The GBK.com site has a more grown up feel to it, similar to other big social networking sites.
• Anyone under 18 can have access to the website for free however nobody will be able to communicate until the members have been verified (checked to see if they are who they say they are) via a third party, like a school/club leader or via a webcam. NOT by a parent.
• All users will have access to a panic button, so even though the site is moderated, if a child did feel unsafe, they could report their concerns to CEOP, The Samaritans or Childline. In the instance of the child above, they probably could have spoken to Childline to get help or contacted a Cyber Mentor on the website (Cyber Mentors are trained members of the site that have been given guidance on counselling and how to help other users that want to speak to someone).

A big thanks to those who have already been in touch and asked questions. I'm interested in your thoughts or opinions you may have on the site and also recommendations of other websites your kids may use, so I can review them next time too. Thanks!

@Lizmundo

Characters players can name & look after on the site.