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AdaptiveMobile responds to new Government initiative on cyber-bullying

Dublin, Ireland, 21st September 2007 - Today the Government launched a campaign to stamp out cyber-bullying in the education sector. The campaign urges schools to take firm action against pupils who use mobile phones and the Internet to bully other children and teachers.

The new package from the Government recommends teachers confiscate childrens' mobile phones and laptops.

With children’s safety at the centre of this campaign, Lorcan Burke, CEO of mobile security provider AdaptiveMobile argues that children should be able to continue using their mobile phones and that the real responsibility must lie not with the school and parents but with the mobile operator to protect children and teenagers and, ultimately, protect their own revenue.

Lorcan comments:

“Cyber bullying is clearly an issue and while we welcome the Government’s steps to counter this type of abuse, it must be highlighted that the responsibilities do not lie with teachers or parents. Although not immediately obvious, mobile phones pose a more serious problem than PCs as they are an inherently more private medium and are harder to police. With government research highlighting that a third of 12 to 15 year olds have been victims of cyber bullying, operators need to sit up and take action. Parents need to feel protected by their mobile operator and want their children to be able to use their phone safely and responsibly. One in four children in the UK now owns a mobile phone. It’s a huge opportunity for those wishing to exploit the qualities of mobile phones that have been so instrumental in fuelling their growth-their immediacy, simplicity and ubiquity.

Mobile operators want to protect their revenues and encourage customer retention. Confiscating a child’s mobile phone would be detrimental to mobile operators, who will lose valuable custom from an age group who actively text, call and surf the mobile internet on their mobiles. Rather, it would be better to offer security solutions that guard youngsters from receiving abusive messages, accessing inappropriate content on the web and receiving harassing calls. It is the operator who has the capacity to monitor all types of traffic to and from the child’s phone and it is the mobile operator who can put in place stringent security measures to protect children from inappropriate content, bullying and spam.

Studies show that parents will pay a premium for the ability to blacklist individual numbers and block messages from short codes or content providers to prevent such persecution.

In addition, operators should be encouraged to highlight the safety benefits of mobile phones for children, including constantly being able to contact them via voice calls or messaging, GPS tracking of their children, and mobile payment provision enabling the child to request payment for safety reasons (e.g. to pay for a taxi if necessary – a code request can be provided by the child’s parent).

As long as they guarantee that the mobile service they are offering their customers is safe, monitored and secure, and provide parents with the ability to put controls in place, operators can reduce customer churn and increase the retention of subscribers. It is the operators who can ensure that both parent and child will feel protected without teachers taking the drastic measure of confiscating a child’s mobile phone.”


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