Good evening,

You are receiving this alert because you are shown as a parent on the Hampshire Alert system.  We wanted to bring to your attention some information about young people and applications, that might not be well known.

Recently, myself and PCSO MASTOROPOULOS attended a primary school where we spoke with age 9- 10 year olds about their use of the internet and smart phones.  During our visit, we asked the children how many of them owned a smartphone, how many used ‘apps’, and found most of them were using applications such as:

Snapchat

Whatsapp

Facebook

Instagram

You tube

and others.

Really concerningly, the minimum age for social media applications tends to be 13, however one has raised their lower limit to age 16; the reason they set these ages is because of the risk posed to children on the internet- they need to be able to protect themselves against risks they cannot perceive at their age.  In addition, the ability to access a smart phone can sometimes mean that issues occurring within school can then come home and bother them between the school days.

We are always happy to come and speak with our local schools to help educate young people about the dangers of using a smart phone.  We will always express the following highlights:

*The phones are more than likely funded by parents / carers, and so remains the property of their parent / carer.  Children are told to expect to present the phone for inspection, and to make it available without fuss.  They are also made aware that their behaviour whilst using the phone can sometimes cause parents to be investigated as well as the owner / bill payer.

*The children are made very aware of the age limitations on the popular social media applications and encouraged to delete their profiles / applications

*Really sadly, we regularly receive reports / have concerns that a young person is using their smart phones to take indecent images of themselves- this is a serious offence even though they might be taking the photo of themselves; a fact they are often unaware of and find hard to accept.  

There are a variety of websites that provide support and advice to help keep young people safe online / on their phones including, but not limited to the following:

Keeping your child safe on their smartphone | Barnardo's (barnardos.org.uk)

Parental controls for mobile phones - Ofcom

Keeping children safe online | NSPCC

If you have any questions, please let me know.  Finally, please forward this email to anyone who you think would find the content useful / have young people to protect!  If you could let me know how useful you have found this alert by using the voting buttons below I would be grateful, thank you.

Kind Regards

Annette