Parents who want to protect their children online may look to filtering and blocking software for services for help. With the expansion of mobile devices, options can be confusing. One of the options you may want to consider is KidSafe. We recently conducted an interview with James Boccarossa of KidSafe. He shared with us the details of what KidSafe has to offer parents and how they are interested in maintaining the safety of kids and ensuring they are making the best digital choices possible. What was the need for the program?The co-founders son was the target of an online child predator. At the time, digital tools for parents focused on blocking and filtering content from the home computers. There were no protections that parents could put into place that were flexible enough to engage the child everywhere that he might access social networking (school, work, a friend’s home, gaming systems, ipods, phones, etc.). Further, there were no tools at the time that were designed specifically for the purpose of providing parents with a clear picture of how, when and where a child is using social networking and their mobile phone which made it difficult for parents to have the info they need to guide their digital kids. How long has the project been in existence?KidSafe was founded in 2009 and the service launched in the 4th quarter of 2010 Whats the percentage of people who use it?The service has only been “out of beta” for a few months and more than 21,000 subscription months worth of service have been purchased. How do you form partnerships with other organizations?Partners are able to either resell our technology using the KidSafe brand, or they are able to leverage our FamilyConnect ™ platform which makes it possible for KidSafe to launch a fully-functional “private label” version of our service in a matter of weeks. This Private-label capability enables KidSafe’s partner to build their own brand, while protecting kids, and KidSafe’s dedicated technology, operations and customer support teams will handle all of the behind the scenes work on behalf of the partner. This enables the partner to stay laser focused on marketing and sales. Explain the process of installing and using the program?Parents are able to access KidSafe from any Internet-accessible device. They first subscribe to our online service and provide some basic profile information about their child(ren) including what social networking sites their children use and the login credentials. If their child has a supported mobile phone, they are able to download a mobile application directly onto their child’s mobile phone as well. What was the target group?Parents who have children ages 9-17 What do you foresee as the use or benefit to the public?KidSafe cannot do the job that uniquely belongs to parents but we can assist parents by making it easier to raise, safer, more responsible digital kids. KidSafe helps parents educate, engage with and protect their children from cyberbullying, sexting and stop child predators. By creating visibility into a significant part of a child’s life that is current invisible to most parents, they will be in a better position to impact current and future behavior with technology. Currently it is up to the individual partner how they market the service. Is this part of a greater effort to combat/promote Internet safety?Absolutely! In addition to providing technology to parents, KidSafe has developed a world-class Internet and mobile safety workshop that has been shared with many hundreds of schools and thousands of parents all across the country. Keeping Kids Safe: An Internet & Mobile Safety Workshop™ is a free program, exclusively designed to educate and engage parents. We have also trained and certified many hundreds of individuals all across the country to take this workshop and the educational and empowering message to parents. We believe that while technology can make parenting easier, only parents and the children themselves can truly keep the children safe online. Education is a significant part of our mission and culture. Will this program work on every type of cellphone and computer?Yes. Unlike traditional parental control software that needs to be installed on the device a child is using, KidSafe monitors a child’s social networking usage regardless of where they use these sites. We connect directly to the websites themselves. This means that every parent can use our service. If the parent also wants to monitor text messaging, today the service will monitor text messaging that occurs on Blackberry and Google Android phones. What would you want users to know about this program?
KidSafe is an online (no installation required) and mobile service that helps parents protect their kids from bullies and “bad guys” and helps parents and their children to better manage the child’s online privacy and reputation. In short, KidSafe provides parents with a bird’s eye view of what is going on in their child’s digital world so that they can keep their finger on the pulse, and when necessary, take action to protect the safety and privacy of their kids.