ChildAware is dedicated to helping parents, child protection agencies, and providers of information and communications technologies, products and services (ICT), to be more aware of the special needs of young child users who are between 4 and 12 years of age.

Mobile phones and internet services are in use every day by millions of young children. Many of these products and services were designed for responsible adults to use, not for young children. Suppliers need to be more aware of this, and to add specific features to improve child safety and security. Parents need to be more aware of how young children can use these products and services to best advantage, without significantly increasing the risks to the young children from misuse.

New child guidelines for information service providers are being developed by ETSI Project STFQC (click here for more information)

ChildAware is based on work done in the last 4 years by The European Telecommunications Standards Institute’s Human Factors Committee (ETSI TC HF) (click here for more information)

Designers of mobile phone and internet products and services for young children need to take account of these new ETSI guidelines.

Parents looking for help should check out these guides to good practice.

Developing a ChildAware Charter – a self-regulatory code of practice for service providers