ICO – Parental Confidence Versus Children's Digital Reality
New research reveals growing gap between parental confidence and children’s digital reality
Some very interesting new research from the Information Commissioner's Office.
More than 4,000 children aged 8–17 and their parents were surveyed, and the findings show quite a gap between what parents think is happening and what children are actually doing online.
For example:
- 91% of parents said they use controls or monitoring tools.
- 41% of children said they had tried to get around those controls.
- Of those who tried, 49% said it was easy.
- 52% of children said they would find a way around age checks if they wanted access to a service.
- Almost a third of parents said they had previously helped their child get around an age restriction.
There is also an interesting finding that more than a third of children talk or play online with people they only know online or do not know at all.
I think this is useful evidence for schools, particularly when talking to parents about why parental controls are only one part of online safety and need to sit alongside regular conversations and digital literacy.
Link: ICO – Growing gap between parental confidence and children's digital reality
For Parents – ChatGPT Parental Controls
ChatGPT has parental controls which allow a parent or guardian to link their account with a teenager's account and manage a range of settings.
Parents can control things such as:
- additional safeguards around sensitive content;
- Voice Mode;
- image generation;
- memory;
- quiet hours;
- and some other ChatGPT features.
Importantly, linking the accounts does not allow a parent to read their teenager's conversations or monitor their chat history.
This could be a useful link to share with parents, particularly those whose children are already using ChatGPT.