Thursday 17th of June 2021
Spielman clarifies position on naked images being sent between students
- Ofsted Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman has issued a clarification that naked images sent between students can be a safeguarding issue.
- In a hearing of the Commons Education Select Committee, Ms Spielman appeared to suggest that male students sending naked photographs of themselves was not a safeguarding issue.
- Ms Spielman has now issued a clarification of her remarks on social media and said that sending naked images was a safeguarding issue.
- She said that at the hearing, “at one point I was questioned about how schools should respond to incidents where naked images are sent to girls and my comments have been interpreted by some people to mean that I don’t view this as a safeguarding issue. That isn’t what I said and that isn’t what I think.”
- For the full story, select here.
Bristol company criticised for hosting image site popular with paedophiles
- A web-hosting company based in Bristol has been found to be providing services to an image-sharing website popular with paedophiles, according to anti-online abuse charity the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).
- Zare, which provides services helping websites to stay online, counted photo-sharing site Imgspice as one if its customers last month.
- Imgspice is reportedly ‘notorious’ for hosting child sex-abuse material – more than 2,500 incidents of confirmed child sex-abuse content were found on the site last year, according to IWF.
- After being contacted by the IWF about Imgspice’s activities, Zare severed its ties with the website – but the IWF has argued that internet-hosting companies need to do better to vet their customers.
- For the full story, select here.
Google updates its children’s online safety lessons
- Google is updating its digital safety and citizenship curriculum called Be Internet Awesome, which is aimed at helping school-aged children learn to navigate the internet responsibly.
- This was first introduced four years ago, and the curriculum now reaches 30 countries and millions of children.
- In the update, Google has added nearly a dozen more lessons for parents and educators that tackle areas like online gaming, search engines, video consumption, online empathy, cyberbullying and more.
- For the full story, select here.
Google adds encrypted messaging to its Android app
- Google’s Android phone system is adding encryption for its mainline messaging app.
- A standard of Apple’s iMessage system for years, the feature has until now been absent from the default app from Google.
- Google’s version depends on something called Rich Communication Services, which the company introduced in 2019.
- like iMessage, it will be active only if both users have it turned on and have wi-fi or data.
- For the full story, select here.
Welsh review to be held into sexual harassment in schools
- Wales’ education watchdog will hold a review into sexual harassment in schools after 91 were named on a site for reporting allegations of abuse.
- Education minister Jeremy Miles has asked Estyn to examine the culture in schools.
- He said he was “deeply concerned” about the recent reports and that the schools named will be offered support.
- It comes after a report found sexual harassment had become ”normalised” in schools in England.
- For the full story, select here.
Care services too focused on investigating families in crisis, says review
- Child protection services in England are too focused on investigating families in crisis and do not provide enough early support, a report says.
- An independent review of council-run children’s social care said services to protect vulnerable children were in urgent need of investment and reform.
- It concluded that with an increasing demand for help, the current system was unsustainable and failing young people.
- The government, which set up the review, said it was boosting funding.
- For the full story, select here.
