Online Safety for Children

Our school districts take great pains and time to ensure students will be safe while on the Internet; at school teachers monitor the use of Internet, so ensure you monitor what your children are looking at when they are at home. They should also report any inappropriate sites that they come across while surfing.

Ideally a computer used by children should be placed in a common area easily supervised. Chat rooms may seem fun for them to talk to other children of their same age, but they have to be careful what information they provide on line. Chat is about as private as having a phone call with parents listening in on the other extension. They should never give out any personal information about themselves, such as full names, addresses, and phone numbers. Do not agree to meet anyone offline.

Remember people who would harm children have lots of time, experience and knowledge on how to trap children. These uninvited guests are con artists fraudsters, thieves, sex offenders, stalkers, and some who are just plain weird. Children are amateurs compared to them. While children do have a reasonable right to privacy, parents have a stronger moral, ethical and legal responsibility to keep them from harm.

See text from Internet Safety for Kids brochure in the Kid's Stuff section of this website

Other Internet resources:

Online Sexual Exploitation of Children
The Technological Crimes Unit of the Medicine Hat Police Service is responsible for investigating and assisting investigations involving sexual exploitation of children on the internet, internet auction fraud, identity theft, computer hacking, theft of high-tech computer components, counterfeit computer software, and any other crimes where the computer is used as a tool or is the target of an offence. Read more.

Cybertip.ca is Canada's National Tipline for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children. It is a centralized web portal for receiving and addressing reports from the public regarding child pornography, luring, child sex tourism, and children who are exploited through prostitution. Cybertip.ca also provides the public with information, referrals and other resources to help Canadians keep their children safe while on the Internet. Visit cybertip.ca

Safe Kids
Safe Kids - Rules for Online Safety

Kids in the Know
Kids in the Know - Kids in the Know is an interactive safety education program for increasing the personal safety of children and reducing their risk of sexual exploitation.

BC Ministry of Education - Internet Safety Tips for Parents

Reporting Internet Crime
If you receive any suspicious information over the internet that you want to bring to the attention of the Medicine Hat Police please send an e-mail message to "hatcybercop@medicinehat.ca". Read more about the Technological Crimes Unit.