CPF is Canadian Parents for French educational opportunities, a non-profit volunteer based organization. For more information about CPF see our web site at http://www.cpf.ca
CPF FRENCH INTERNET ADDRESS LIST
0530-1. Internet Safety - Guidelines
Guidelines
- do not send personal information (i.e. address, phone number, personal e-mail address, credit card number, photo, child's last name, name of child's school) on the Internet at school and at home do not or be cautious and check with a parent. If a child's work is to be posted by class on the school web site only put the initials (first and last), do not put the first and/or last name.
- a good rule of thumb when installing anything (ie. windows, netscape, frontpage, icq) on your computer that requires a registration, do the registration anonymously.
- regarding not giving out personal information, check that school newsletters, school parent group meeting minutes, children's sport teams and such that put information about children on a web site (that can be accessed by persons who pose a danger to children) not put too much information.
- check sources of information on the Internet, anyone can have a web page, but i.e. only NASA's web page is a reliable source of information from NASA.
- at home a parent should attend when young children are on the internet.
- at home with children you may wish to keep a password on your internet access.
- teach children how to use the back button on their internet browser ( or turn their back to the screen ) in the event they find something offensive on their screen and get an adult to help.
- it is safest never to agree to meet face to face with someone you met on the Internet. If you still wish to meet someone from the Internet, check with your parent and take your parent to meet the person in a public place.
- beware of tricks on the Internet to take your money.
- refrain from passing chain e-mails along as this increases the chance your e-mail address will be added to a nuisance mailing list. Note that a virus warning e-mail can be a chain e-mail scam to collect addresses.
- re offensive e-mail, a first step is to forward an offending e-mail with a complaint to postmaster@ the offensive e-mail's ISP (Internet Service Provider) address.
- as with threatening phone calls, there are ways to trace the source of threatening e-mails.
- Links to friendly greeting
cards may be less than friendly. Story at:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/10/28/security.net/index.html
- note that many schools:
* have Student User Registration Policies for the Internet.
* prohibit use of chat rooms on their Internet service.
* require students using their Internet service be
supervised by an adult at all times.
- from the BC Ministry of Education March 2007:
INTERNET SAFETY
The Connecting Canadians website
now includes a section on the federal
government's strategy to promote safe, wise and responsible Internet use.
The Cyberwise section includes a comprehensive selection of background,
research and useful resource links:
http://www.connect.gc.ca/cyberwise/index.shtml
- the < Media Awareness Network
is a Canadian non-profit organization (Also in section 0320
French Internet Related) that has an Internet site that includes children's
safety, see
http://www.bewebaware.ca
The Media Awareness Network developed 'Web Awareness: Knowing the Issues'
with with partners from the Ontario public library and education sector,
see http://www.webawareness.org/
- the Canadian Library Association
has a Net safe, net smart tool kit at
http://www.cla.ca/netsafe/netsafe.htm
- the American Library Association
has Families Connect
http://www.ala.org/ICONN/familiesconnect.html
- the FBI in the USA have a
Parent's Guide to
Internet Safety and Internet Safety
Tips For Kids on their Internet site.
- On February 5, 2007 the RCMP
announced the launch of the Kit101: An Educator's Guide to Internet Safety,
an Internet resource to protect young users while surfing the net. The RCMP
indicated that the kits were being distributed to education personnel to
allow them to better prepare youths and parents for the safe use of the web.
The guide offers a collection of safety tips, helpful presentations and links
to police-approved resources. The kit was developed with the participation
of police services in the National Capital Region and was funded under the
CyberWise.ca program of Industry Canada.
http://www.cyberwise.ca
- at the RCMP web site, click on the down arrow of the 'Help Section' box and click on 'Search', then enter 'Web Safety' and you will be at a link to an article 'Web Safety Information for Parents and Kids'.
- http://www.deal.org
http://www.choix.org/
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police's National Youth Strategy has evolved
considerably from the original basic goals of reducing youth crime and victimization.
One of the strategy's initiatives, deal.org (Delivering Education and Awareness
for Life), has grown well beyond its original focus, when it was created
in 1998, of fostering drug awareness among Canadian youth. It has evolved
into a comprehensive Internet resource, including pages for parents and teachers.
Deal.org aims to empower youth by providing an interactive forum to communicate,
research and express ideas. Young people from across Canada and around the
world can connect to one another, tell the world what they're doing and get
involved in their own communities. The French version of deal.org is choix.org
Deal.org's Cyber Safety section is at http://www.deal.org/_e/pt/cybersafety.html
Le Sécurité dans le cyberespace de choix.org ce trouve à
http://www.deal.org/_f/pt/cybersafety.html
- Parents Guide to the Internet
from the U.S. Department of Education
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/parents/internet/
- Canada's SchoolNet http://www.schoolnet.ca
go to search and do 'Internet safety'
- Child & Family Canada,
A unique Canadian public education web site. Fifty Canadian non-profit organizations
have come together under the banner of Child & Family Canada to provide
quality, credible resources on children and families on an easy to navigate
website. The managing partner of the consortium is the Canadian Child Care
Federation.
Safety
http://www.cfc-efc.ca/menu/eng012.htm
Managing the Internet
http://www.cfc-efc.ca/docs/00001063.htm
Protecting your child from
predators
http://www.cfc-efc.ca/docs/00001239.htm
- for home computers there is software (i.e. Net Nanny) and services (i.e. Cyber Patrol) to help screen offensive material from the Internet, to block access to offensive sites on the Internet and to prevent personal information going out on the Internet. The following is a sample list of Internet screening products (also known as filtering software). Some of these products also screen for viruses:
Norton
see 'Norton Internet Security, Family Edition' - 'Parental Control' and
'Privacy Control'
Freedom® Internet Security software from TELUS
- remote filtering services are available, i.e.
- there is software to monitor activity on your computer, i.e.
http://www.cybersnoop.com(discontinued)
- there are kid browsers, i.e.
- there are private Internet services, i.e.
- there is software to make e-mail more secure, i.e. Authentex Datasafe http://www.authentex.com(discontinued)
- the University of British
Columbia and the Justice Institute of B.C. have launched the Canadian Centre
for
Information Technology Security at http://www.ccits.org
- in 2000 a school Parent Advisory Committee raised an Internet safety concern with their school board, as follows:
- Before the Internet, it was possible for a pedophile to go to a
school
board's
office and pick up a brochure with a photo of children
- Posting the school
board's brochure, so to speak, with a
photo
of children on the Internet makes it more easily available to
pedophiles
and with the current technology for digital editing of
photos,
it is easier for pedophiles to use the photo to obtain a fresh
face
for child pornography.
On January 29, 2001 the school's
District Parent Advisory Committee (DPAC) sent a letter to the the school
board saying
that at their meeting of January 25, 2001 the district parent representatives
agreed to write the board to indicate DPAC's support of the school PAC's
request that the board post no pictures of board students on any school
board web sites.
The National Post of February 8, 2001 has an article 'Computer-generated porn raises legal questions' about the problems in US courts about just such activities.
The school board held an evening session for parents on Internet Safety on April 25, 2001. When questioned, the board’s guest speaker, a detective from the Organized Crime Agency of BC said he would not put photos of students on the Internet as there is a danger of pedophiles ‘morphing’ the photos into child pornography and a spokesperson for the board said the board would adopt a no photos of students on the Internet policy within a year.
The school board revised their web site in 2002 to include more photos of students. The web site of the school that raised the Internet safety concern has no photos of students. The school uses student art work in lieu of student photos.
- an analogy recommended by
a school Parent Advisory Committee computer club to begin to teach young
children about Internet safety is:
Your town is a wonderful place. However, your town has some dangers, so
your family has taught you some safety rules, like do not talk to strangers.
Knowing these safety rules helps you enjoy your town. Just like your town,
the Internet is a wonderful place where there is lots to learn. However,
just like your town, the Internet has some dangers. So it is important to
learn some safety rules, and knowing these safety rules helps you enjoy the
Internet.
- also see
http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/resourcedocs/internet_safe/
The British Columbia Ministry of Education publication 'Internet Safety
Tips For Parents'.
http://www.plnet.bc.ca/about/isafety.html
The British Columbia Provincial Learning Network, Internet Safety site
http://www.cln.org/kids/index.html
Community Learning Network (CLN) British Columbia, Kids Only with Internet
safety
http://www.yahooligans.com/docs/safety/
http://www.cyberbreach.com/
scroll down and click on 'Family Safety'
http://www.livewwwires.com/
http://www.internetsafety.com
Offering a commercial product 'Missing: An Educational Kit About Internet
Kidnapping'.
http://www.childrenspartnership.org/pub/pbpg.html
The Children's Partnership (American) Parents guide to the information
superhighway
http://kids.mcafee.com/
An American company`s Kids Internet Safety site
http://worldkids.net/school/safety/internet/internet.htm
Internet Safety with netiquette information
http://www.esrb.org
ESRB, Entertainment Software Rating Board, also offers ratings and content
descriptors for Internet products(websites, online games, and chat)
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