Microsoft adds child protection buttons to Internet Explorer

Microsoft has partnered with Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center to release an optional child safety toolbar for Internet Explorer 8. It’s been released to coincide with Safer Internet Day.

Once installed, the toolbar simply adds a button which, once clicked, brings up options for reporting a variety of incidents. These include attempts to distribute viruses, cyberbullying, unwanted sexual approaches and inappropriate content.

There’s also an option to run special searches for online safety advice, with the results all coming from the CEOP site and those of carefully selected partners. The toolbar also adds various online safety sites to the browser’s Favorite’s list.

Talks are ongoing to add the feature to Google Chrome, though it’s not known if there are any plans to bring it to Firefox or Safari. The BBC reports some criticism that the Microsoft tie-in may be seen as an endorsement of a particular browser, especially one that’s not got the best reputation when it comes to viruses and other computer security threats. Several commenters on the piece have made the point that there’s nothing stopping CEOP from producing its own buttons for both Chrome and Firefox.

CEOP is an organization bringing together the police, government agencies and children’s charities to tackle child safety both on and off-line. It’s previously attacked Facebook for refusing to include a CEOP report button on its homepage. Facebook maintains this is unnecessary as it has its own reporting system which covers the site in all countries.

The theme of this year’s Safer Internet Day is “Think B4 U post”. I’m not sure it’s really necessary to assume children won’t respond unless you speak to them in text message language, but the message is certainly worthy. The campaign is aimed not only at children and teenagers, but also aims to get adults questioning how their children behave online and whether they may be unwittingly sharing too much personal information.

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