Study on “Benchmarking of parental control tools for the online protection of children” SIP-Bench II - SMART 2009/0047

1. Study on
“Benchmarking of parental control tools for the online protection of children”
SIP-Bench II
SMART 2009/0047
Study on
“Benchmarking of parental control tools for the
online protection of children”
SIP-Bench II
SMART 2009/0047
Safer Internet Forum
Luxembourg, Oct. 21, 2010

2. Study on
“Benchmarking of parental control tools for the online protection of children”
SIP-Bench II
SMART 2009/0047
What is SIP Benchmark?
A Benchmark of parental control tools throughout Europe
What’s new in SIP Benchmark II?
 6-monthly test cycle
 In addition to tests of software on PC also tools for game consoles
and smartphones are tested
 Wording
 Test of effectiveness and usability of parental control tools

3. Wording of SIP Benchmark II
 Parental control tools and services
 Filtering tools and services
Study on
“Benchmarking of parental control tools for the online protection of children”
SIP-Bench II
SMART 2009/0047
According to the findings of the Youth Protection Roundtable none of the
products available so far is able to solve the problem of harmful content
alone but can support parents in the process to avoid access to it.
The consortium therefore uses the term tool and service instead of
solutions, i. e.

4. UsabilityEffectiveness
 Test of content of classic websites
and Web 2.0 (i.e.user generated
content)
 Testbed with
 20% non harmful content
 80% harmful content
 adult content 40% (of total
data test)
 other categories of content
(racism, violence, gambling)
40% (of total data test)
 Test of Functionalities
 Customisation of the filtering
 Set-up of profiles etc.
 Test of the following processes
 Installation
 Configuration
 Usage
Ref. to ISO standards
Experts reviews
User tests
Users tests
Experts reviews
and

5. Some very first preliminary results* from the 1st test cycle
Functionalities
 More than 80 % of the tools provide parents with the possibility to
create and manage more than one profile
 All tools allow filtering of websites according to special types of content and to
block access to the web at all
 More than 90 % allow parents to customise the filtering, f. e. create
or modify url lists or keyword black/white lists
 65 % are able to block MSN messenger, 45 % allow blocking MSN and Skype
 40 % allow to block entire protocols like IRC and FTP, more allow to block
IRC /FTP applications
 Some tools allow to block streaming from YouTube with a specific functionality,
others do so only by adding YouTube to the black list
 75 % of the tools provide parents with a basic report on users’s web activities
and violations of previously settled rules
* based on the test of two third of the tools

6. Some very first preliminary results* from the 1st test cycle
Usability (scores are 0 – 6 points)
Installation process 5 % < Ø 4 < 26 %
Configuration process 10 % < Ø 4,47 < 53 %
Usage of the tool 40 % < Ø 3,78 < 26 %
 Part of the tools keep the installation procedure very simple to avoid
mistakes of the parents but then the possibilities to customise the
tool to one‘s own needs are very poor
 Other tools have very extended options to configure the software but
then the risk of misconfiguration and bad filtering results is very high
* based on the test of two third of the tools

7. Some very first preliminary results* from the 1st test cycle
 All tools work better on adult content than other harmful contents
(racism, violence)
 All tools are less effective for user generated content
 Most software filtering features are based on black and white
lists (with all well-known limits of this approach)
Effectiveness
* based on the test of two third of the tools

8. Some very first preliminary results* from the 1st test cycle
 General blocking results
 By Age
 Overblocking 2 % (both age groups)
 < 10: Underblocking 36 % / > 10: Underblocking 34 %
 English language content
 Overblocking for English language content 1,9 %
 Overblocking for other languages 1,1 % (Polish) – 3,4 % (Spanish)
 Underblocking for English language content 33,4 %
 Underblocking for other languages 34 % (French) – 45 % (Italian)
 Web 2.0 (user generated content)
 Overblocking 4 %
 Underblocking 40 %
 Adult content
 Overblocking 2,3 %
 Underblocking 25,7 %
 Other harmful content
 Overblocking 1,3 % (Violence) – 8,2 % (Gambling)
 Underblocking 36,1 % (Drugs) – 58,4 % (Selfdamage)
Effectiveness * based on the test of two third of the tools

9. Some very first preliminary results* from the 1st test cycle
Hacking the software
 Some tools can be uninstalled or shut down without a password
By-passing the software
 Several tools allow to access harmful content through translation
tools, proxies or IP addresses
 All tools for usage on PCs can be by-passed by using a CD to by-pass the
operating system installed on the computer
* based on the test of two third of the tools

10. Request for co-operation with SIP-Bench II
 We are looking for support in the recruitment of users to
accomplish the test of the tools from the 2. testing cycle
on (spring 2011) – User will get licences of the software
to be tested for free. Please inform users in your country
to register for participation in the test via email to
jcroll@digitale-chancen.de
 We provide detailed information on the effectiveness
and usability of 30 parental control tools available as an
online database and a comprised study report. We will
send the link to the database and the PDF to interested
organisations not later than Dec. 2010.

11. Thank you on behalf of the SIP BENCH II
Project Team!
Contacts
Project Manager: Silvia Pietropaolo
E-mail: s.pietropaolo@innova-europe.eu
Scientific team
Jérôme Valette
E-mail: valette@cybion.it
Jutta Croll
E-mail: jcroll@digitale-chancen.de