030/06
7 April 2006

Australia Leads World in Online Child Protection

The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan today welcomed the announcement by the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in Washington that Australia was one of only five nations out of the 184 studied to receive top marks for its crackdown on child pornography.

This coincides with the release of a new educational campaign called Wise Up To IT - to inform young people of online dangers . The campaign has been prepared by the Australian Government's Internet safety agency – NetAlert – as part of activities to mark National Youth Week.

The International Centre for Missing and Exploited children examined the laws of 184 countries with the assistance of Interpol. The countries were examined on the effectiveness of their legislative response to child pornography.

Following this analysis, Australia along with Belgium , France , South Africa and the United States were the only countries found to have enacted legislation that was providing significant protection for children.

“This legislative response forms part of the Government's three pronged strategy of legislating, educating and regulating to protect children online. It is pleasing to see international recognition for Australia 's strong stand,” Senator Coonan said.

Recognising the importance of education as the primary tool to protect children online, NetAlert today released a new DVD for use in schools. It details real-life experiences of Internet issues affecting young people including cyber-bullying, scams, cyber-stalking and online grooming.

The DVD comes after six months of research by NetAlert and represents four case studies where young people have fallen victim to the dangers lurking on the Internet and offers advice to avoid such situations occurring to others.

“It is of the utmost important that children are aware of these issues and ensure they and their parents actively take steps to prevent these scenarios happening to them,” Senator Coonan said.

NetAlert worked closely with The Online Child Sex Exploitation Team, Taskforce Argos (QLD), and the Australian High Tech Crime Centre to accurately represent the case studies in the DVD and provide strategies to help young Australians manage the risks while surfing the Internet.

“With this useful resource parents and teachers will be able to openly discuss these issues at home or in the classroom and together gain a better understanding of the problem,” Senator Coonan said.

The DVD is freely available to the community and is available from the Wise Up To IT website www.wiseuptoit.com.au .