25% Of All Kids Have Talked To A Stranger Online

“It’s 11 o’clock. Do you know where your children are?”

That used to be the famous opening for newscasts across North America.

Now that query could be replaced with a new one. “It’s anytime. Do you know what your children are doing on the computer?”

As it turns out, the answer is all too often ‘no.’

A new survey confirms what your kids are already well aware of – a large number of moms and dads are either too busy, too unaware or don’t have the computer skills to know what their youngsters are up to. And they ignore it at their peril.

It found at least 54 percent of children between the ages of 9 and 16 have a secret e-mail account or identity. And that means parents have no way of knowing who they’re communicating with.

Equally disturbing – at least 56 percent go into chat rooms. And most frightening of all, while a quarter say a stranger has tried to make arrangements to meet them in person, at least four percent kept that date with danger.

“Four percent is an awful lot of kids,” worries Paul Gillespie of the Kids Internet Safety Association. “And we’re just one real serious tragedy away from something that shocks our community again and we don’t want that to happen.”

Gillespie is a former Toronto Police officer who gained worldwide acclaim investigating child pornography, helping his fellow officers find an abused child in a famous case where the victim was airbrushed out of the picture.

He’s made it his mission to ensure all children are safe from online predators.

But it’s a constant battle and the enemy – pedophiles – are refining their techniques all the time.

“I think it all boils down to awareness and education,” he reveals. “Parents have to get involved with their kids and know what they are doing.”

But most youngsters in the affected age group told CityNews their parents don’t really know enough about PCs to watch them too closely.

James Carpenter is the father of a teenage girl and a computer expert. He’s taken steps to ensure those stats don’t apply to his daughter.

“I have set up her log in to a machine with a password so she cannot go on the machine unless I’m there and I log her in,” he explains. “So she can’t be on the machine unless a parent is in the house.”

Remember, it’s your computer and your house. You make the rules. And when it comes to the web, here’s the Golden one.

“Don’t let your kids talk to strangers on the Internet,” Gillespie warns.

His organization has a number of online safety tips. And you don’t have to be a computer expert to understand them or see them. Just click here.