The proposals include:
- Legislation to tackle paedophile "grooming" activity on and
off-line, including a new civil order to protect children from an
adult making contact with them for a harmful or unlawful sexual
purpose whether by email or in Internet chat rooms;
- A best practice model of Internet chat safety measures for
providers, including a requirement for clear safety messages and
tools, such as 'alert' buttons, to be displayed in chat rooms;
and
- Computer awareness training for the police and child protection
practitioners to ensure that all officers know how computers can
assist in the detection and investigation of crime and how to
collect and preserve the integrity of digital evidence.
Home Secretary David Blunkett said:
"Protecting our children, whether on the
internet or anywhere else has to be our top priority. The Internet
brings massive benefits, opening up a world of opportunities for
young people, but sadly, it also brings new risks from paedophiles
who try to abuse their trust.
"I will be consulting Government colleagues
and the legal profession over the summer to ensure that we can
place new anti-grooming laws on the statute books as soon as
possible. There should be no hiding places, online or offline, for
the insidious activities of paedophiles.
"The police, the industry involved in
providing Internet services in the UK and child protection
organisations represented on the Task Force are to be congratulated
for delivering some impressive results in a short space of time.
And I look forward to seeing further progress to make the UK the
best and safest place in the world for children to use the
Internet."
The Task Force is expected to develop its proposal over the
summer and to report on them again in the autumn. A further
progress report will be made to the Home Secretary early in
2002.
