Pre-teens creating dangerous world online: report

AN increasing number of pre-teens are creating a dangerous world on the internet where they often contact people they have no connection with and post personal information including their address, phone number and school.

A European report has found that while Irish parents are more vigilant than most in this area a growing number of web-savvy children are able to change safety filters and delete the history of sites they visited.

The EU Kids Online report — the largest survey undertaken in the EU on children and their relationship with social networking sites — also revealed how one-in-10 Irish children, aged nine to 16, say they have seen or received sexual messages online in the past year.