"Everything
we knew yesterday is today obsolete – isn't that wonderful?"
These words, perhaps dubiously attached to those scientists involved
in the American atomic bomb project in New Mexico in 1944, do
serve to illustrate an optimism for the future that is open and
refreshing.
I
was reminded of this in terms of the 50th anniversary issue of
the Webmag. The Webmag represents a positive harnessing of childcare
and internet technology that must represent the future for us
all and the vision that led to its inception can only be heartily
congratulated and endorsed.
In
turn, this resonates with the huge challenges and risks that IT
provides for the lives of young people across the globe. Whilst
it is true that we have not yet fully appreciated the dangers
that IT brings, it is also the case that we have not fully exploited
the positives.
For
those young people who are often the recipients of social welfare,
provided either by local authorities or by the voluntary sector,
IT represents a widening of horizons in a way not dreamed of 20
years ago. As internet access extends to schools and libraries,
it becomes a way of tapping into knowledge and contacts that are
clearly both positive and negative.
The
Cambridgeshire police, who initially thought that Holly and Jessica
might have been lured away from home in Soham by an internet contact,
tried to recharge the girls' mobile phone to pinpoint their location.
It is this Jekyll and Hyde element that demands much more consideration
and it will, incidentally, form the focal point of a conference
Barnardo's is planning in February entitled "Just One Click".
The message, of course, is that, increasingly, young people are
only "one click away" from liberation or potential danger.
It
is probably little more than a truism to state that moral and
ethical debates cannot keep up with the speed of scientific development.
The same is equally true of IT. The warped ingenuity that leads
to new ways of exploiting children sexually on-line is scarcely
matched by those who legitimately try to oppose it.
As
Operation Ore has revealed, we also just do not have the police
resources to investigate the large number of people who have deliberately
- and in many cases repeatedly - accessed pornographic images
of children. Research from Barnardo's seems to illustrate that
the abuse of such children is both continuous and timeless: continuous
in that it takes place afresh when such material is accessed,
and timeless in that it remains in the ether in perpetuity.
It
is this that so upsets children and young people who have been
abused in this way. The solution clearly lies in a concerted approach.
If we are to develop ways of using mobile phones as a new tool
for protecting children, if we are to develop internet access
as a new method for disadvantaged children and if we are to, at
best, control the development of child pornography, we will need
the commitment of the whole IT industry. It will also involve
new interdisciplinary teams in which international lawyers, IT
specialists, police, the industry and social care staff work collaboratively.
Everything
in the future may be wonderful, but we will need to work to ensure
it stays this way.
