Dr. Niall Muldoon:

We spoke recently at a massive international conference in the national conference centre for privacy professionals. I spoke about the idea of every app being designed to be safe for children right from start. That is safety by design. We have all of the bells and whistles on it, but it is set up only for children and the adults just have to switch off whatever they have to switch off. That seemed to be alien. I could not believe the number of people who were fascinated by that idea. They were professionals looking to make profit and trying to create all sorts of things that were nothing to do children, but they could see that as a good way to go. They also suggested that this could be a positive for older people too because the same concept would work for the older person, who might not have used apps, if they know it is set up for simplicity. It could be great. The interaction and dialogue with the professionals is crucial in this regard but we have to get to a stage where children are starting off on a safe basis. Education is also going to be a crucial part of that. We have to build it into our curriculum that online etiquette and online safety starts at four, five, six, seven years of age because before they get into national, school children are now swiping things.