The XGate monitoring system can be set up to send parents text messages if their children view pornographic, violent or abusive websites and e-mails.
Manchester-based Global Security One (GSEC1) say they developed XGate in response to parents’ concern about the safety of their children online.
They claim that by carefully monitoring children’s activities on the web, XGate has the potential to significantly reduce communication which could be harmful.
Mark Brooks, the company’s International Marketing Manager said:
“Parents face the problem of it being impractical to constantly oversee their children’s online activities. And potentially damaging online material can take many guises, including websites, chat rooms where grooming can take place, blogs, bullying emails sent by other schoolchildren, and even videos of children fighting or children being bullied by others taken on their mobile phones – so called happy slapping – and then posted on the Internet.”
A recent survey by a children’s charity found that children who were subjected to cyber bullying did not inform their parents because they thought they would lose access to their mobile phone and the internet.
Designers say the XGate will:
– Flash an alert page (which reads ‘This page has been blocked under the category of pornography, please contact your guardian’) on the PC screen should a user try to access a website with pornographic content;
– Email or SMS the website address to parents’ mobile phones to advise them so they can discuss with their children later
– Block emails with pornographic or bullying content and attachments via its intelligent email filter
– E-mail or SMS to parents’ mobile phones if inappropriate language occurs while their children are in chat rooms and ‘at risk of being groomed’.
– Parents will also be able to remotely shutdown the computer by replying to the text messages. They can also allow access only to specific websites at certain times; for example, educational sites between 6pm and 8pm for controlled studying.
Brooks said: “We believe that the XGate enables parents to be in charge of their children without being afraid of technology and the internet which, used safely, is a wonderful tool.”