A children's charity report has found that child porn crimes have risen by 1,500% since 1988.

NCH, formerly National Children's Homes, says the internet is largely to blame for the huge rise in offences, particularly through the use of chat rooms.

The charity says in 2001, 549 child porn offenders were charged or cautioned, compared with only 35 in 1988.

There are concerns too over the possible dangers of new third generation 3G phones, with video streaming.

How can net security be improved? Send us you comments.

This debate is now closed. Read your comments below.

Your reaction:

The following comments reflect the balance of opinion we have received so far:

Any young person on the internet should be supervised Nick, Ossett, West Yorkshire, UK

Mum and Dad, it is your responsibility to protect your kids. So why buy a computer and connect it to the internet and then put it upstairs or in the den and leave them alone with it? Any young person on the internet should be supervised. That means you pay attention to what they are doing! So, are they texting a message right now, on their phone you bought for Xmas or their birthday? Who's it to? Same choice?
Nick, Ossett, West Yorkshire, UK

The ignorance displayed by many of the people who have written here goes a long way to explain the problems. Those who say "porn sites should be banned" or "children should be kept out of chat rooms" or even "chat rooms should be banned" clearly have no idea what the internet is, how it works, nor of the sheer scale of things, because if they did they would realise that none of those things is remotely practical. How do you solve the problem? Speaking as an internet user since 1982 (yes, a long time before Tim Berners Lee et al wrote the software that made the World Wide Web possible), I don't know, but parental control, supervision and a sense of personal responsibility instead of expecting everyone else to act as unpaid nannies would be a good place to start.
Kate C, England

The only way to protect children is to supervise them. Parents must accept that, as will all other things, children cannot be allowed to run completely free. Kids don't always know what they're doing, and parents need to place restrictions on them, simply to keep them safe.
Mike, Glasgow

If anything, the internet has helped confront child porn Bernard, UK

These figures are just poor statistics, and blaming the internet is at best mistaken. The rise in reported and prosecuted crimes is mostly because child porn is taken seriously now and actively prosecuted, whereas even a decade ago it was generally ignored. If anything, the internet has helped confront child porn, allowing those seeking and distributing this to be located and evidence collected to prosecute in a way that was simply not possible when such trade was purely through personal contacts.
Bernard, UK

The problem with the internet is with its speed of growth. It has now gone too far to back track and apply security. The way forward has to be education. We need to educate the children, and their parents, so that they don't fall into traps set up by perverts.
Andy, UK

There are two fundamental problems with policing the internet. Firstly the sheer size of it, and its global nature, means that there is no way it is realistically possible to police it manually. Secondly the number of false-positives triggered by any automated system (when AOL tried to filter the word "breast" from its network complaints flooded in from all sections - poultry farmers, breast cancer sufferers etc). Even something apparently obvious could have unexpected effects - what happens if someone does an internet search for "campaign against child pornography" - the last two words are registered and the "good guy" immediately becomes a "bad guy".
Jonny, England

There is just no imagination being used by the authorities on how to deal with this problem. I cannot believe that it is not possible for the IT boffins to wage an effective cyber war on the offending sites. Surely it is easier to deal with a few sellers of illegal material than thousands of buyers. Disrupting the supply chain is the easiest option. You could also withdraw the Consumer Credit Licence of any credit card company who makes payment to the owners of the sites. It is all about profit, without the ability to trade the majority of these sites will disappear.
Peter, UK

Don't let children under 15 use the computer unsupervised Helen Kreissl, UK

Here is an idea...don't let children under 15 use the computer unsupervised. I am about to start a family and our children won't be able to use the computer alone, and won't have access to a TV in their room or mobile phone until mid teens. It's about time parents actually took control for once and acted like grown ups.
Helen Kreissl, UK

Move the PC into the Living/Dining room...that way when the kids are on the net the parents can see what they are doing...but no, we don't do that do we...we shove the pc and the kids away in their bedrooms, to keep them quiet and then wonder why they cruise porn sites...wow! My daughter is 6 she has a PC in the upstairs study, it has NET access via a Network connection... which I monitor and it disconnects at 7pm...
Paul, Stafford, UK

The best way to improve security is to set up bogus sites and nail any pervert users of them.
Robert Willoughby, London

I feel a measure of responsibility for building the computer used by my brother's kids but unlike some, my brother and his wife are usually both in the room when they use it, and they only want to play on the Tweenies website anyway. Supervision, that's all there is to it, and don't let the kids have a PC in their room that's net-enabled. Problem solved. For phones, the tech can be built in but it's missed a generation now.
Flynn, England

Many parents need educating themselves. James, Essex

The solution may be to educate our children better, but many parents need educating themselves. Often it is today's children that are teaching their parents!!!
James, Essex

I don't understand why mobile phones are meant to make the matters worse than they are now. It is my understanding that the really bad sites require a credit card to pay for them - and this has to be the case whether people are browsing from their own PC, the office, a Cafe or a mobile phone.
Allan M, London, UK

The figures have been published are fanciful. This isn't the internet that's to blame; it's just the general evolution of computers. Previously, paedophiles would have exchanged photos in person. Now, CDs and more recently the internet, just make it easier to exchange. The internet doesn't create paedophiles, their numbers are the same. The difference now is that they are more noticeable -- and that is a good thing.
Tony, UK

Surely a Minimum 5 year prison sentence for any one using these sites will deter them? Nigel Taylor, Southampton England

I use the Net frequently, I do not look for these sites that show abuse of children, surely a Minimum 5 year prison sentence for any one using these sites will deter them and a minimum 15 year prison sentence for those people providing these sites will deter. I suggest punishment, instead of the slap on the wrist that this government offers.
Nigel Taylor, Southampton England

Just a thought, but surely there could be a way for the manufacturers to programme mobile-phone-cameras to imprint/encode the phones' number in small but visible print in the corner of photo's taken? Don't some cameras already have this feature? It might certainly discourage the taking of some pictures that end-up on sick websites...
Nick Carey, Coventry, UK

Recently I did a search on pregnancy, a lot of the sites returned when pornographic. How can you teach children to use the internet without getting the porno sites if a simple search on an innocent topic returns these sites?
Caron, England

We need to educate children. D.T., UK

We need to educate children. Just this week I have been posting on a forum where children as young as 13 were giving out their names and e-mail addresses. At 13, my children would not be allowed near a chat room or forum without first understanding the golden rule NEVER give out personal information.
D.T., UK

The internet needs to be policed for this stuff. Certain words in the traffic should be able to be picked up by the ISP's and warnings consequently passed to police. This government needs to act now if it cares about child victims.
Alan Higgins, UK

Alan Higgins has more faith in automated technology than he ought to. What he's forgetting is that words mean different things to people. Years ago, parents were horrified to learn that "spice girl" meant something different to certain other cultures. Keepers of the Sphinx cat breed can have a big problem. And inhabitants of Scunthorpe discovered that their entire town was blotted off the map by Internet censorship software. Would you like to discover another of these unfortunate coincidences by making it onto the sex offenders register?
Simon Richardson, London, UK

The web, by its very nature, cannot be controlled by a single government or lobby group. Richard, Wellington, New Zealand

It can't. The government can do as they wish but any regulations aimed at reining in the "internet" are meaningless headline grabbers. The web, by its very nature cannot be controlled by a single government or lobby group. I for one am tired of attempts at restrictions being placed on the things I enjoy/use in the name of "protecting the children". Surely the emphasis should be on their parents to do this?
Richard, Wellington, New Zealand

More responsibility should be put on the chat room owners to protect children and to report any suspicious users to the police. If fines and even jail sentences were imposed for those chat rooms who don't then we would see a huge increase on those being caught and stopped from hurting children. Parents also have to be better educated on the various types of software that can monitor their children's use of the Internet. It is all too easy to blame the Internet but it is only a tool. It is here to stay and therefore new laws must be brought in to stop the sick people who use it for evil.
Chris McGurie, Glasgow

This is another misguided publicity stunt by a charity. Probably no more porn photos of kids are taken than 5 years ago. It's just that more people are able to look at them easily. The Internet is very traceable hence more people get caught. Once again the police go for the easy targets that make good headlines whilst the real villains who take the photo's get away.
Barry, London

There is a simple solution to keeping children safe on the internet. DON'T LET THEM ON IT! Jeremy, England

There is a simple solution to keeping children safe on the internet. DON'T LET THEM ON IT! The internet was not designed for children, and is not intended for them. The internet is like a city, and just as you wouldn't let your child wander around a city un-accompanied, neither should you let them near the internet un-attended. Chat rooms, particularly, should be off-limits to ALL children.
Jeremy, England

Most of the dangers to kids are through chat-rooms, so if you have kids, don't install the IRC chatroom or instant messaging software on their computer.
Anna Hayward, St Neots

I can see the government using this as an excuse to regulate the internet, and infringe on people rights to privacy and everything else. I think it's time we concentrate on the most important issue, and that's the education of the children. This is just scare mongering. Kids need education, education, education, need I say more.
Martin, Basingstoke, UK

Net security depends upon true global cooperation of ISP's. Lorraine, St Albans, UK

Net security depends upon true global cooperation of ISP's. When recently my e-mail account was hijacked by pornographic spam I used some on-line software to track the origins through the IP address trail. The material originated in places as far apart as Japan and South America.
Lorraine, St Albans, UK

I believe the Americans are proposing an idea that all websites accessible within the US be preloaded with Windows NetMarshall and armed with low velocity HTML that can be called upon should any Paedophiles slip through normal site security. British ISPs are generally supportive but insist that they control the code. Sceptics have pointed out the inherent danger should offenders manage to bypass NetMarshall and utilise the code for their own purpose.
Phil Eadie, London, UK

Working in IT I can honestly say that having a regulated Internet is a near impossible task. The sheer amount of people accessing the Internet is overwhelming and to zone in on those looking at illegal material is pretty much finding a needle in a haystack. People *can* be caught, but I think the minor percentage would surprise. As many of the people have said in this forum, I think the only way to crack down on this problem is education of the children.
Dave Harris, Bath, UK

Couldn't this all be stopped if credit card companies stopped the transactions of the companies selling this material? Steven Simpson, Sunderland

Two points, the image quality of any movie viewed on a hand held phone is very poor, coupled with the low memory of G3 mobiles does not make them an ideal platform for viewing this kind of material. Also couldn't this all be stopped if credit card companies stopped the transactions of the companies selling this material? (This was read in Computer Shopper Dec 2003, I believe).
Steven Simpson, Sunderland

The Internet is not a child's toy. For as long as parents absolve themselves of being responsible for their children online, more children will fall victim to crime on the 'net. We need to teach parents and children how to behave responsibly and safely online. This may at least help to deter any new crimes from being committed.
AC, UK

Despite the NCH report being just hype and an insult to intelligence, lumping cautioned with charged and using percentages to maximize their argument, the issue they raise is worth consideration. Anonymity is not necessary when using a phone but privacy is. The best way to go on catching these people out and making it awkward for them it is to ensure pre-paid phone owners are not anonymous and carry out similar sting operations as are carried out on the internet.
David R, Plymouth UK

More regulation and more power to the police. Ant, Edinburgh, Scotland

More regulation and more power to the police. That way it looks like we're doing something to tackle this problem. The real issues here are parental responsibility and the fact that there are people in our society that want to harm children. You could shut down the net totally and it wouldn't make our children safe. Tackle the real problems and it wouldn't matter how long they spent in chat rooms.
Ant, Edinburgh, Scotland

The net security cannot be improved as long as pornography is allowed. The only solution is to banish the pornographic sites altogether! Prevention is better than cure! Freedom without responsibility is anarchy!
Srinivasan Toft, Humleb�k, Denmark

The internet is not responsible for the rise in child porn. Fast cars are not responsible for speeding. Fast food is not responsible for obesity. People are responsible. The mechanism used is easy to blame but ultimately it's the people committing the offences that need to be dealt with.
Mick Sheppard, Bradford, UK

The problem isn't the internet itself, it is education. James K, London, UK

The problem isn't the internet itself, it is education. Children should be taught how to use the internet responsibly and safely. They should realise that the internet isn't the "safe" place it's made out to be and to be more vigilant because of it. Banning the internet may cause "forbidden fruit" syndrome, which would obviously have a negative effect. Working with children and teaching them how to use it safely as well as good policing is key to stopping this.
James K, London, UK

Better security will involve being as creative in coming up with ensnaring mechanisms as the paedophiles are at getting their material. Although many people groan at the prospect of a regulated internet, problems in society dictate that without such measures, there will always be individuals lacking morals, common sense, or both who spoil total freedom for the rest of us who are capable of self-control.
Lin N., USA

How they have managed to obtain any accurate statistics on this baffles me. Keith, Rayleigh, Essex

Child abuse is Vile, but how they have managed to obtain any accurate statistics on this baffles me. Clearly they are catching more offenders but that may just be better detection.
Keith, Rayleigh, Essex

These figures do not mean that child porn has increased, surely it means that "more people have been caught" so, the more the offence goes online, the easier it is to catch these evil people.
Philip Thompson, Aberdeen, Scotland

Maybe the new technology gives us an easier way to catch these people. Jonathan Kelk, Dalry, Scotland

Whereas it saddens me that people do this, the reality is probably that the number of offences haven't increased, but that the way they are committed is different and the conviction rates are higher. Maybe the new technology gives us an easier way to catch these people.
Jonathan Kelk, Dalry, Scotland

The only problem is that those who view child porn on the net are paying for it, and hence encouraging the abuse of children in the production of porn. Identify the people supplying the porn, cut off payments, and the problem is solved. Instead, the police are focusing on the prosecution of individuals viewing the material. This may be popular with the public, but it is short-sighted and ineffective.
Ray G, London, England

Kids and parents need to be both streetwise as well as internet wise. Andy H, London, UK

We don't allow our children to cross the roads without teaching them the importance of cars and traffic. How come most parents allow their children to browse the internet and use chat rooms without either monitoring them or teaching them the dangers? Kids and parents need to be both streetwise as well as internet wise.
Andy H, London, UK

I don't think it can. Being on the net is like being in a public place and you cannot police that 100%. The best prevention is education in schools about how things can happen on the internet and what precautions kids can take.
Claire Herbert, London

Child pornography is a disgrace, but let's keep some perspective. The percentage increase may be massive but look at the overall numbers - from 35 to 549. It's hardly indicative of a nation inhabited by paedophiles. The web is a bit of a cesspit in places but how much of the increase is based on the almost messianic pursuit of these people in recent years. Of course offenders should be caught and punished. Just keep a sense of proportion about the size of the problem.
Paul B, Oxfordshire, UK

Maybe the internet isn't the problem in the first place, but a potential cure. James Page, Tonbridge, Kent

The internet can act as an effective web with which authorities can ensnare child porn offenders. Operation Ore relied on information from the FBI gathered from the databases of child porn websites. Maybe the internet isn't the problem in the first place, but a potential cure.
James Page, Tonbridge, Kent

Chat rooms should have some sort of monitoring. Trouble is that many kids pretend to be older than they are. For the genuine offenders, something needs to be done but how do you prohibit them from the net? They could just use other ISPs/chat rooms/PCs and still get on. Hopefully the awareness adverts will have some effect.
Moo, London, UK