Results from the last benchmarking cycles show that parental control tools still are more effective at blocking adult content and other harmful content and less efficient at filtering content related to racism and self-harm (sites promoting anorexia, suicide or self-mutilation). In general most of the tools do not work well at filtering user generated content on the internet - while they can block access to things like social networks and streaming services, only very few tools are able to filter contacts in applications such as Skype and MSN. Comparing the fresh results with those from previous cycles an increasing number of tools offer a web-based configuration and some of them allow parents to make use of the filtering on different devices.
The SIP Bench II - Benchmarking of parental control tools for the online protection of children project is funded under the Safer Internet Programme. The current project is run by a corsortium of INNOVA, Brussels, Stiftung Digitale Chancen, Berlin and Cybion, Rome until December 2012. The results of the fourth test cycle are to be found here.
Call for volunteers in July 2012
We are looking for users who are interested to get the license for one parental control tool for free, test its usage and fill in a short questionnaire on how it worked out on their home PC. The tests shall be carried out in Sommer 2012. If you are interested to take part please register at http://www.yprt.eu/sip/survey.