TV’s Dr Tanya Byron is to meet with Gordon Brown at the end of the month to discuss progress
Two years on from the now infamous Byron Report on video games age ratings, TV presenter Dr Tanya Byron is to return to her work and review the progress that has been made since her set of proposals in 2008.
Byron is currently meeting UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) officials and industry stakeholders to assess progress, and will report to the Prime Minister at the end of March.
Update: Less talk … more action
30th March 2010. Based on article from thescotsman.scotsman.com
Action to protect children from pornography and other online ‘threats’ must be accelerated to keep up with advances in technology, a Government adviser has warned. Tanya Byron called for less talk … more action on issues such as parental controls on mobile phones, and warned youngsters could now access adult sites with extraordinary ease.
The TV child psychologist said the creation of Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) and a national safety strategy had made the UK a world leader in tackling the issue. But said it must speed up to stay ahead.
In the two years since I published my first review, a lot has changed – we have a huge number of under-aged children on social networking sites; we know that there are location-based devices; we know that there is an extraordinary ease of access to pornography for children and young people.
Speeding up, we need to see a code of practice for companies and providers, we need to really think about parental controls for mobile phones that can access the internet.
Less talk and a little more action, a little more delivery would be a good thing.
She also criticised a lack of sufficient consultation with young people and parents and urged the Government to push through new rules on video game classification before the election.
