Chit Chat for Facebook Teams up with United Parents to Protect Children and Their Privacy
Wiltshire, England – Athena IT Limited, the makers of the Facebook Messenger "Chit Chat for Facebook," an application that runs on both Windows desktops and Blackberry devices, has joined with United Parents to offer parental security options to protect children using their Chit Chat application on Windows computers.
Chit Chat for Facebook is an instant messaging application that integrates with Facebook to provide enhanced chat functionality. The Facebook tool has received wide praise for its aesthetics, ease of use, and streamlined user interface. The decision to integrate with United Parents Child Protection Service now adds enhanced online security to the long list of positives that have made Chit Chat so successful.
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United Parents Child Protection Service is a leading provider of a solution for parents who want to protect their children online while respecting their privacy. Because children have more social interaction online than almost anywhere else, it has become necessary for parents to be proactive about protecting children from unsavory elements. The system analyzes behavioral parameters of online chats to identify and flag potential predators or cyber bullies as well as self-inflicted threats. In the short time since its launch, the system has issued alerts on variety of issues, ranging from suicide-related discussions to sexual conversations with strangers. The founders. The founders of United Parents developed the Child Protection Software to safeguard their own children and hit upon the idea that a community approach would offer enhanced protection. |
The community approach is designed around the idea of a “digital fingerprint,” the idea that a person’s behavior online is predictable and that phrases, grammar, sentence construction, and other details can be used to identify an individual regardless of the screen name he is using or the computer he has signed in on. So, when a child is messaging with friends on Chit Chat and a user begins chatting with the child, the system compares the content of the messages to a database of flagged offenders to see if the digital fingerprints match. If a match comes up, the system alerts parents to the possibility of danger so that they can choose how to proceed. The key to the community approach is that when more people use the service, more digital profiles can be created and thus more predators and bullies to be identified.
Daniel Offer, Managing Director at Athena IT Limited explains that the IT firm is “concerned about online privacy as well as security. This is one of the reasons that we have partnered with United Parents. The Child Protection Service from United Parents was designed with privacy in mind from its inception. Parents want to give their children freedom while still protecting them from potential danger; United Parents and Chit Chat for Facebook make that possible.”
The combination of Chit Chat for Facebook and United Parents Child Protection Services offers the following features:
- Child’s Summary Dashboard – A continuously updated analysis of the child’s online behavior including time online, demographic information of people communicating with child, social networks and instant messaging services used, and top subjects discussed.
- Alerts - Alerting the parent of the child if/when a child gets into trouble online.
- Digital Graphology™ – Automatic predator tracking and blocking software using “digital fingerprints."
- Monthly Reports – Snapshots of child’s online behavior that is sent to parents via email.
Rather than providing parents access to private conversations or emailing them complete transcripts, the system instead provides a streamlined overview of chat content based on things listed above. It also provides a simple display of how risky the child’s online behavior is compared to a standard model. This means the children need not fear that their parents are reading private conversations, but it also means that parents can start a dialogue with children regarding potentially dangerous communications.
The makers of Chit Chat realized that when children have face to face interactions, parents are aware of who the child is interacting with and who the child’s friends are, which allows parents to assess how safe it is for a child to interact with a given individual. The same abilities to assess safety and get to know who a child is friends with were not available online until now. With United Parents, the goal is to get to know what a child is doing without invading his or her privacy.
Just like parents can get to know whether a friend is trustworthy without invading privacy, so too can parents get to know who an online friend is with the integration of United Parents and Chit Chat for Facebook.
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