If we have learnt anything from technology, it’s that it is continuously evolving, adapting and shaping around new innovations and developments. While this is constantly bringing added benefit towards users when they go online, there is the ongoing concern that with each development, there’s more risk, more gaps in our protections and more opportunities to experience harm.
Harmful online content is unfortunately rife on the internet and without essential protections in place, children and young people can experience upsetting and damaging content at just the click of a button. With this ongoing concern, filtering systems were introduced to ensure illegal online content such as child sexual abuse material and terrorist related content is suitably blocked from being viewed online, especially within educational establishments.
Is Your Filtering System Doing Its Job?
Although filtering systems were a milestone advancement in protections against this harm, implementing one didn’t necessarily ensure you were fully protected. As we found through our work, implementing a filtering system was often seen as just a tick box exercise but unbeknownst to the user, they weren’t always doing their job.
That’s why we created Test Filtering, a free online tool to check whether your internet filtering system was correctly filtering out child sexual abuse material, unlawful terrorist content and adult content. It allowed anyone with an internet connection to ensure they were appropriately protected.
While this allowed for much needed insight and awareness, this is a manual process that relied on the user to actively run the filtering test themselves which requires their own initiative. Unfortunately, this still allowed for exposure to harmful content if the user was not actively committed to running the filtering test regularly. In response to this, we are now providing an exciting new solution.
Test Filtering+ - Continuous Filtering Review
We have launched Test Filtering+, as an extension of Test Filtering that will continuously monitor your school devices to ensure that your filtering system is effectively safeguarding against illegal and harmful material. Test Filtering+ uses automation to continually check your devices, providing you with alerts and reports to ensure your filtering system is working as expected as well as informing you when there are issues.
Test Filtering+ will regularly and automatically run the test so you don’t have to worry about keeping on top of it. Results will be available through an online dashboard for easy identification of issues and email alerts will be sent to notify you of any issues with specific devices.
Test Filtering+ can be easily installed on the devices you want to check automatically. There’s no limit to how many devices you want to enrol, and you can easily remove any old devices from testing if required.
Why Do I Need Test Filtering+?
As we have seen through recent years, schools can experience devastating consequences if their filtering system is not appropriately safeguarding against illegal and harmful material online on a continuous basis.
Considering this, the Department for Education prepared standards for schools that must be adhered to and with initiatives like Test Filtering+, it provides a proactive approach to show you are demonstrating compliance and effectively working towards safeguarding your communities. Online safety is not a box that needs to be ticked every year, it is an ongoing responsibility that requires continuous vigilance.
Test Filtering+ can support you with strengthening your protections against harm online and is an essential tool for schools to consider as part of their safeguarding and online safety strategies.
To subscribe and access this new, vital system, please learn more about Test Filtering+.
