Children told to "Zip It, Block It, Flag It" online

Children are to be encouraged to "Zip It, Block It, Flag It" online in a new safety campaign spearheaded by the UK Council on Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS). 

The campaign will see the message used by schools, retailers and social networks to provide a simple "Green Cross Code" for Internet Safety.  The premise is as follows:

• Zip It
  Don't give out personal information online.
  
  
• Block It
  Block unwanted messages and contacts on social networking sites.
  
  
• Flag It
  Report inappropriate behaviour online
  (To parents, to the website concerned ie. via. a panic button, or to the police)
  
  

The "Panic Buttons", discussed in a previous post here and already adopted by Bebo, are central to the "Flag It" portion of the campaign and are expected to be widely implemented on social networking sites, chat sites, online games and Instant Messaging software in the near future.

The scheme was prepared by the UKCCIS, which was set up following a report by the Government's Online Safety Advisor, Dr. Tanya Byron.  The UKCCIS contains representatives of the largest online companies in the world, including Google, Microsoft and Facebook.  The scheme will be officially launched today by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and will come into effect in 2010.

An important part of the UKCCIS' plans includes teaching online safety as part of the Personal, Social, Health and Economics (PSHE) education in schools, which is currently optional, but under proposed legislation will become compulsory in England in 2011.