Online safety

You should set up parental control on all the devices that your child/ren uses. This includes those devices that belong to other family members when your child uses them.

Setting parental controls will help to keep your child safe while they are online by: 

• blocking inappropriate content  
• limiting in-app purchases 
• managing which apps children are allowed to download 

You can set up parental controls on individual devices and on your home WiFi. Most service providers offer free parental control services and will help you to activate them. These limit your child's access to content that is suitable for under 18s.

You should also activate the privacy settings on each app that your child/ren use, and make sure that location sharing is ‘off’ on their device.

Giving your old phone to your child

Check with your service provider that the parental control settings are switched on, and ask for them to be switched on if they are not. This is particularly important if the phone was used by an adult before. 

Parental controls and security settings are not 100% accurate and are no substitute for open and honest conversations with your child. It's important to explain, especially to younger children, what is meant by ‘inappropriate,’ by using language they will understand.  

Make sure they know that they should always come to you if they see something online that upsets or worries them. 

Regularly have open and honest conversations about what they are doing online and who they are talking to, and:

• remind them of the importance of not talking to or accepting friend requests from people they don’t know in real life
• encourage them to keep all personal information such as passwords, phone numbers, friends, and school address details private
• remind them that people might not be who they say they are online - it is very easy for people to set up accounts with fake names and photos, to make us believe that they are someone they are not
• warn them that the things they write and the photos they post online might be accessed by people other than their friends, if they don’t keep their accounts private
• warn them about the dangers of meeting people in person that they only know online

Children and young people should be encouraged to tell their parents (or an adult they trust) if someone is asking to meet them in real life. Meeting people in real life that they only know online can be very dangerous.

You can find useful information for your child to read on our webpages. Please encourage them to check out the guidance.

Snapchat is a social media app where users share photos, videos and text. The ‘snap’  is on a screen for up to 10 seconds before disappearing, but there is an option to have no time limit. There’s also a feature called Snapchat Story that lets you share snaps in a sequence for up to 24 hours. 

Find out more about:  

• Snapchat rules 
• reporting to Snapchat 
• Snapchat safety centre - instructions on how to apply security settings 

Instagram is a free photo and video sharing app available on Apple iOS, Android and Windows Phone.  

You can upload photos or videos and share them with their followers or with a select group of friends. As with all the apps users can view, comment and like posts shared by their friends. 

Find out more about:  

• Instagram rules 
• reporting to Instagram 
• Instagram safety centre - for instructions on how to apply security settings

TikTok is extremely popular with children and young people. It's a free app for making and sharing short videos. The videos are tall, not square, like on Snapchat or Instagram’s stories, but you navigate through videos by scrolling up and down, like a feed, not by tapping or swiping side to side. 

Find out more about: 

• TikTok rules 
• reporting to TikTok 
• TikTok safety centre - for instructions on how to apply security settings 
• step by step instructions - for controls and settings

YouTube is a free video sharing website that makes it easy to watch online videos. Users can also create and upload their own videos to share with others.  Every minute of every day, more than 35 hours of video is uploaded. 

Find out more about:

• YouTube rules 
• reporting to YouTube 
• YouTube safety centre - for instructions on how to applying security settings

Facebook is currently the largest social networking site in the world with over 2 billion active users. It allows users to connect and share with their family and friends online. Users create their own profile page which they can regularly update. 

Facebook Messenger allows users to chat either one-to-one or in groups.  

Find out more about:

• Facebook rules 
• reporting to Facebook 
• Facebook safety centre - for instructions on how to apply security settings

The Xbox family settings app lets the organisers (adults) in a family group manage their kids’ gaming activities from their iOS and Android phones. The app enables you to feel secure about your child playing online. 

The Xbox app allows you to: 

• receive messages sent to your child 
• listen in on conversations they are having 
• add or delete friend requests 
• set child restrictions 

Find out more about:

• X Box terms of use 
• X Box family and online safety 
• reporting to Xbox

The PlayStation app allows you to: 

• set age restrictions 
• manage how long your child plays each day 
• receive messages sent to your child 
• set multiple layers of passcode protection 

Find out more about: 

• PlayStation terms of use 
• Play Station family and online safety 
• reporting to PlayStation