Ms Grainia Long:

I thank the committee for its interest in this issue, which it can imagine is a priority for the ISPCC, and in hearing our perspective on cybersafety and online safety for children and young people.

We have been working on this issue for many years and members will not be surprised to find that children have informed how we frame the problem and the solutions. Years before the issue of cybersecurity was called that, it had been described to us by children through Childline. It has emerged and evolved over time. Without question, it is the child protection issue of our time. This is a dramatic statement to make, but we do not make it without the evidence to support it.

We separate the issue of technology from access to the Internet and social media. Access to technology is important for children and young people. It is an educational and networking tool and can help to keep them safe. For example, Childline is a form of technology that helps to keep children safe. Our view is not that technology is a bad thing, but we need to distinguish between technology and access to technology from access to the Internet and social media. Regulated and well-managed access to the Internet and social media can also be a useful tool so long as we understand the nature and impact of same and ensure that it is applied in an age appropriate way.

A number of issues have emerged and will probably be discussed often during this meeting. For example, as technology has developed and become more complicated, so have the issues coming to us from children. This is not a simple matter and the problems are not easy to describe, as is often the case with children. My colleague, Ms O'Sullivan, who is the expert in our services area, will take the committee through the case studies and some work that we have been doing to understand the issues for children and young people. The solutions are complex.

Sometimes, I worry that cybersafety and online safety are seen as being so much of an all-encompassing issue that we are in danger of putting it into the "Too Difficult" box. It is not too difficult. If we and policy makers begin thinking of it as too difficult, we will fail our children and young people. We must find solutions and ways in which to keep children safe. It is possible.

We will talk the committee through some of the work that we have done, including an important case review and an internal analysis of our case studies, so that it can understand the emerging themes and trends. We have made some recommendations on legal and policy changes and education.

A distinction needs to be made between technology and use of the Internet and social media, but we also need to make a distinction between what is or should be illegal behaviour online and what is harmful behaviour. Illegal behaviour is simpler to understand and define. For example, the Law Reform Commission has stated that online stalking needs to be prescribed as an offence in law. That would make it easier to detect and prosecute. We agree with that recommendation. Online harassment also needs to be a prosecutable offence.

Cyberbullying is a form of harmful behaviour. Severe and malicious bullying that becomes harassment then becomes a form of illegal behaviour, but we need to understand the two separately. If we do not, we are at risk of criminalising children and young people who often undertake actions online without understanding the consequences. This is one of the issues that will arise at this meeting.

The ISPCC is the national child protection charity. We are probably best known for our Childline service, which is the national listening service. We receive more than 400,000 contacts from children and young people annually, or approximately 1,200 per day. In recent years, children have increasingly chosen online forms of communication to contact us. At a particular age, children are increasingly comfortable disclosing some personal and sensitive issues online through our web chat service. The fact that we have this technology available to us enables us to support and help children. Our one-to-one child and family services, therapeutic services and many other services work with children who have been victims of crime or harmful behaviour towards them online. Often, we work with these children, who have been traumatised in some shape or form and need help, for many months.

We undertook a piece of work last year in which we examined our caseload over a period to understand the emerging issues and the experiences of children and young people online. This is outlined in section 3 of the report. I will hand over to Ms O'Sullivan to talk the committee through it.