Concern for child safety in online exposure

CHILDREN routinely leave themselves open to paedophiles trawling for online victims, a study has shown, heightening fears for child safety on the internet.

It found that despite all the risk warnings, one in six secondary school students physically met a stranger with whom they had online contact, often discovering those contacts had lied about their age or identity.

Many children essentially advertised their vulnerability because they did not know how or did not bother to use privacy settings to restrict access to their personal information on social networking sites.