Safer surfing with filters and co.

Enabling children to use media in a safe and healthy way is a major challenge. A well-functioning youth protection program is an excellent addition to media education. But it should never be the only measure. For one thing, technical solutions can never guarantee complete protection. Secondly, children should gradually learn to deal with media independently, stick to rules and develop healthy self-control with regard to their screen time.

Even with a youth protection program, it makes sense to first negotiate rules for media use together as a family. The website www.mediennutzungsvertrag.de can help with this. Enforcement of the rules, for example when it comes to usage times, can then be supported by a parental control program.

Parents should regularly enquire about their child's experiences with media. Shared media use also creates opportunities for discussion. This keeps parents in regular contact about what their children are experiencing online, what fascinates them and what may be troubling them. We have compiled further information on this in our article "Use these questions to find out more about your child's media use".

Parents should consider the following when it comes to parental control programs and media education:

• Use parental control programs as a supplement to media education, not a replacement.
• Agree clear rules for media use in the family. For example with www.mediennutzungsvertrag.de
• Keep in regular contact with your children about their online experiences and offer yourself as a contact person in the event of problems.

Most parental control programs contain filters for inappropriate Internet content. These are, for example, known sites that disseminate pornography or violent content. These sites are recorded in a database. Access to these sites is prevented by a parental control filter. Many sites also display age information in the source code to the Internet browser. Some programs can also prevent access to websites that are not yet registered. In this case, certain words are filtered. For example, if a URL contains the word "porn" or "sex", access is prevented as a precaution.

As useful as such filters are, they have their limits. As a rule, they only work reliably in a specific browser. If a different browser is used, the filter may work less well or not at all. Furthermore, the idea that children only come into contact with inappropriate content via the internet browser is unrealistic. Other distribution channels are primarily messengers and social media apps, but also streaming portals. Parental control filters are ineffective in these programs as they only work in an internet browser.

Filters also do not protect against contact risks such as cyberbullying or cybergrooming. And they cannot detect more complex problematic content such as disinformation or illegal advertising. Filtering for certain words also carries the risk that useful content will be blocked. For example, websites offering sex education suitable for young people are very likely to contain the word "sex" and could therefore be blocked.

If parents use filter software, they should bear the following in mind:

• Filters usually only work in certain programs. All other programs must either be blocked or individually set to be safer.
• For young children, it is advisable to make only a few good children's programs accessible. You can find an overview of good offers at klicksafe.de/kinder und www.seitenstark.de
• How restrictive a filter is set should depend on the child's stage of development. The older and more mature a child is, the more freedom they should be given.

In the long term, parental control programs can certainly make media education easier. However, parents should not assume that setting up the program correctly can be done with just one click. Parental control programs are theoretically intended for everyone between the ages of 0 and 18. If you want to set up a device for a 4-year-old child, you have to apply different safety standards than for a device for a 16-year-old. This is why most parental control programs offer a wide range of setting options. It takes time to familiarize yourself with them. And in the days and weeks following the initial setup, parents should monitor whether the parental control program is working as desired and make any necessary adjustments to the settings.

Parents should bear the following in mind when setting up parental control programs:

• Use the step-by-step instructions on www.medien-kindersicher.de to help you set it up.
• Remember that setting up the device correctly is a process that can take several days or weeks until the right settings are found for your child.
• The settings should always be based on the child's stage of development. This means that you will probably have to keep making changes to the settings, even over a longer period of time.

Parental control programs are not completely secure and closed systems. It is of course also possible to circumvent security measures. For example: If parents have restricted access to the YouTube app to one hour a day, children can still open YouTube videos in WhatsApp and watch them beyond the time limit. Resourceful children can bypass restrictions set by their parents in this way. This example makes it clear that it makes sense to test the child's device for possible loopholes yourself first. By logging the apps used, parents can also find out whether their child is circumventing protection settings. In the case described above, for example, it would be conspicuous if the child suddenly started using WhatsApp for several hours a day without any reasonable explanation.

Parents should note the following about loopholes in parental control programs:

• Explain to your child why you think some protection settings and restrictions make sense. This can increase your child's acceptance.
• Especially at the beginning, try out the child's device and check for yourself whether you can bypass security settings.
• If activated, keep an eye on the child's usage times. Here you can find indications of problematic use of the device.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child also applies in the digital world. This is set out in General Comment No. 25 on the rights of children in the digital environment. On the one hand, children's rights guarantee children the right to protection from content that is harmful to their development and from violence. On the other hand, they also guarantee children the right to access to culture, leisure and play.

Parents and other adults who bring up children therefore have an obligation to offer children the greatest possible protection without unduly restricting their rights to free development and privacy. The developing abilities of a child must also be taken into account. This means that protective measures must be constantly reviewed to determine whether they are still appropriate or whether the child is now sufficiently developed to manage without these protective measures.

Parents should note the following on the subject of children's rights and youth protection programs:

• Familiarize yourself with children's rights in order to know which rights you must observe and enable your children to enjoy. A German translation of General Comment No. 25 can be found here.
• Regularly check whether the protective measures in place are still appropriate for your child's level of development and adjust the settings if necessary.
• Never secretly use technical monitoring options. This includes Internet usage logs (e.g. websites visited), insight into private communications and location monitoring. If you want to use these functions for security reasons, inform your child beforehand.