Social networking
Social networking websites and chat services offer people the opportunity to message friends and meet new people online. We want to help parents protect their children from exposure to inappropriate content and malicious strangers.
Social networking via your mobile
Social networking sites are increasingly popular with teenagers, raising concerns among some stakeholders about the potential risks of making personal information publicly available.
We have agreements to make several popular social networking sites available via mobile, including Bebo, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace and YouTube. Our contracts with these partners include clauses that enable Vodafone to work with them to protect users from inappropriate content.
Vodafone chaired the UK Home Office taskforce to develop industry guidelines on social networking, which were launched in April 2008. The guidelines are broken down by user experience (for example, registering for a service or privacy settings) and not by specific website, so they will continue to be relevant as new services emerge. We are now updating our internal guidelines on social networking for our operating companies to incorporate these industry guidelines.
We already publish advice for customers on how to use other services, such as how to chat safely online. This guidance is aimed at children and young people, as well as adults. The key message is never to give out personal details to a stranger you meet in a chat room – for any reason:
- Don't give out your phone number or email address.
- Don't say where you live, study or go to school.
Vodafone UK is part of the Virtual Global Task Force (VGT) that aims to make the internet a safer place for children and to prevent online child abuse by offering advice and information through its website. It also provides an easy way for customers to report suspected cases of abuse.