Call for better child protection from abusive texts

MOBILE phone companies and the state’s telecoms regulator are to be asked by an Oireachtas committee why they are not using available technology to protect children from abusive and inappropriate calls and text messages.

The Joint Committee on Communications and Energy and Natural Resources was told yesterday that mobile operators in Ireland were reluctant to use software developed by an Irish company to restrict unsolicited text and voice calls made to children.

Chief operating officer with Sentry Wireless, Sharon Kiernan, said the company had developed software, with the support of Enterprise Ireland, that can be downloaded onto a SIM card so parents could easily control their child’s mobile use.

Ms Kiernan said the company’s KidSafe protection system only got a “lukewarm” response from mobile operators in Ireland and the committee should recommend a deadline for operators to address the problem.

Committee chairman M J Nolan said they would contact mobile operators and the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) to discuss the issue.

Labour’s spokesperson on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Liz McManus, believed ComReg should be leading the way in addressing the problem, particularly as the technology had advanced to a stage where a solution was possible.

Fine Gael’s Simon Coveney said the committee should make it clear to the mobile phone operators that if they did not act to deal with the problem it would be dealt with through legislation or regulation.

Ms Kiernan said more than 400,000 children under the age of 14 have a mobile phone; more than half were between five and nine. Sentry Wireless’s technology allows a programme to be downloaded onto a SIM card so that parents, using a personal identity number (PIN), can permit calls and text messages sent and received by their child’s mobile phone.

Ms Kiernan said mobile phone usage by children was on the increase, and while some progress had been made by mobile operators regarding mobile internet safety controls more needed to be done in the area of text bullying, unwanted text and voice-mails.

Kidsafe is being launched in Singapore next month and Sentry Wireless is hoping to have one of all of the Irish operators on board to launch KidSafe in Ireland early next year.

Ms Kiernan said one of the companies in Singapore had decided not to charge customers to use the technology as a goodwill gesture.