What are the issues?
We need to safeguard children from the potential dangers of a range of mobile content and services available on a mobile phone.
Commercial content – branded or sold by a third-party provider through commercial agreement with a mobile operator. Mobile operators act as the delivery and access provider and exercise an element of commercial control over the content delivered, which includes pictures, video clips, games, music, sounds and gambling.
Where commercial content is classified as suitable only for adults over 18 years old, we require our commercial partners to play their part in ensuring that it is only available to customers who have passed through our age-verification processes.
In the UK, over-18 content is categorised by a third-party classification body on behalf of the mobile communications industry – and this will also happen in Ireland.
Non-commercial content – mobile operators provide only an internet connection for this and have no commercial control over its content. However, in the UK and Ireland, we have launched parental-control capabilities that allow parents to restrict access to non-commercial internet content on their children's mobile phones.
Subscription services – we have implemented a 'stop' command for content subscription services in the UK and Ireland. To stop an unwanted subscription service, customers simply reply to the service with a text message saying 'STOP'. In the UK this has resulted in a ten-fold decrease in complaints to O2 about subscription services from contract customers, from 1,141 complaints in March 2005 to 111 in April 2006.
Customers can also forward unwanted spam text messages to 7726 in the UK. The messages are investigated and any premium-rate numbers they contain can be made inaccessible from the O2 network.
O2 is committed to blocking access to illegal content in the UK based on information from the Internet Watch Foundation. Illegal content is also blocked on O2's i-mode® services.
“The challenge is to ensure that the positive aspects [of mobile] for children are not outweighed by the potential negatives … and that those who stand to benefit most are empowered to do so”
Will Gardner, Research and Policy Manager, Childnet International, which aims to help make the internet 'a great and safe place for kids' and identifies the 3Cs of risk to children - Content, Contact and Commercialism, taken from the O2-sponsored online spiked debate: 'Mobile phones and child protection - How far should we go?
For more information visit the following pages in our extensive online resource
Issues in brief
O2 plc
- Safety first
- What are the issues?
- Keeping a close watch
- A policy of child protection
- Putting a ring around bullies
- Assisting emergency response on July 7
- What are location-based services?
- A matter of life and death
- Pictures and the law
- Collective action on spam
- When should we intercept?
- Privacy at what price?
- Data retention and protection
- A question of balance
