Half of UK kids have seen Internet porn

MORE BRITISH children who have been on the internet have seen porn there, according to figures released by EU Kids Online, a survey of the London School of Economics.

Released to promote Safer Internet Day, the numbers show that only one other EU country that has collected such figures had more online kids that had seen porn and that was Poland, where 71 per cent had done so.

In addition, British children had received twice the number of "unwanted sexual comments" than the European average.

But the LSE could not specify whether these numbers indicated comments from adults or other children.

The numbers were released as a teaser from a survey of surveys that will be published by the LSE in June. It was therefore unable to clarify the numbers.

The teaser showed that 51 per cent of British kids who had been online had seen porn. The European average was 40 per cent.

But the LSE could not specify what range of material it included in its classification "porn". The results would be of greater concern if its classification included only material that was at the more extreme end of the scale.

The porn figure was obtained from a survey published in 2004 by Professor Sonia Livingstone, co-author of the EU Kids Online report. Linvingstone was not available to comment.

Her Kids Online co-author, Dr. Leslie Haddon, said the numbers were probably still useful: "We don't expect things change that quickly".

However, he said, compared to the rest of Europe, the UK had prepared the kids the most for safe surfing.

The teaser showed that of the dangers that face EU kids on the internet the most common was giving out personal information that might then be used to steal their identities or which might be used against them in current or later life.

The second most common danger encountered by EU kids online was porn, followed by violent or harmful content, of which the same proportions of UK online kids saw - at 31 per cent - as in the rest of Europe. Then came bullying, harassment or stalking.

About eight per cent of UK kids online had met people offline that they had only met online, said Haddon. This was about the European average.

But an astonishing 65 per cent of children in the Czech Republic had meetings in real life with people they had only met online before. µ

L'INQs
European Commission’s Safer Internet Plus Programme
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre
Kidsmart