Britain wants to ban sex offenders from social networking sites
The British Home Office today announced it wants to stop convicted sex offenders from using social networking Web sites by making it illegal for them to sign up. Parliament is scheduled to take a look at the legislation before 2009.
Registered pedophiles would be forced to give their e-mail address to police authorities, who will turn the e-mail over to social networking sites for them to be blacklisted. If caught violating the law and using an e-mail address not given to the government, convicted child sex offenders could face up to five years in prison.
"We are working together with police, industry and charities to create a hostile environment for sex offenders on the internet and are determined to make it as hard as possible for predators to strike, as in the real world," Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said in a statement.
Critics pointed out that nothing will stop sex offenders from creating more than one e-mail address and using computers in Internet cafes and other locations. Furthermore, police authorities likely don't have the financial resources or man hours to check if offenders have more than one e-mail account.
More than one-fifth of Internet users who are at least 16 years old use at least one social networking site, Ofcom reported earlier this month. In fact, even though some social networking sites have a minimum age of 13, more than one fourth of kids between the ages of 8 and 11 years old have a profile on MySpace, Facebook or Bebo.
Other critics of the Home Office's decision said a bigger emphasis needs to be placed on parents who allow their young children to have access to the Internet anytime, anywhere. The director of Glasgow-based Netintelligence, Phil Worms, recommended parents keep the PC in the family room or other public place, inform children about possible dangers, make sure children use nicknames on social networking sites, and even share an e-mail account so parents know what kind of e-mail their children are receiving.
If passed by parliament, the legislation would have an impact on more than 30,000 sex offenders in the UK.