service about cr Virgin Media
>> WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO THIS YEAR
Establish a clear position and strategy on our ISP responsibilities.
Provide a complete account of all safety-related risks including contentious content on our TV channels and portal, and mobile phone safety.
Acting responsibly towards our customers requires us to recognise all the various impacts associated with our products and make sure they're safe for everyone to use. Here's where you can find out where we stand on issues like online safety, adult content and gambling.
It's almost impossible to imagine life without all the advantages of the internet. In just a few years it's brought limitless entertainment, education, information and services into our homes. On top of this it's given us all sorts of ways of communicating and socially networking, bringing us all closer together.
But along with these new ways of communicating come concerns around things such as privacy, intellectual property and the safety of web users, especially children. These issues go beyond simply managing our direct responsibilities to our customers; they relate to the much broader question of what being a responsible Internet Service Provider (ISP) involves.
As a leading ISP, we want to make sure we're not just passively following the debate around what's expected of us. Over the course of this year, we will be working to get a better understanding of different people's views on the question of ISP responsibility and developing our own position and action plan. We look forward to sharing this with you and hope it will provide a constructive contribution to this important debate in our sector.
In some areas we have already undertaken initiatives that we regard as an integral part of our attempt to become more responsible in this area.
Last year we produced Internet Safety Made Simple -a straight-talking booklet aimed at helping families understand and enjoy the internet safely and containing top tips on how to protect the family PC, as well as fun and informative websites to visit for people of all ages. Our website also contains some simple advice for customers on how to make their PC more secure, particularly in relation to wireless connectivity.
We were one of the founder members of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) which enables us to identify and remove any illegal content that's hosted on our servers. We will also be working closely with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection agency (CEOP) and are sponsoring their first International Youth Advisory Conference (IYAC) in July this year - an event designed to bring young people from around the world together to discuss their safety online.
There are plenty of types of content and material that are perfectly legal for us to provide but which we recognise we need to manage access to carefully.
'Adult' material broadcast through our TV channels, for example, requires us to carefully apply our PIN protection capability to ensure children aren't gaining access to it. Similar vigilance is essential in relation to checks we carry out on any customers wishing to access adult material through our mobile phones to ensure they're over 18.
We also provide access to a range of gambling products both on TV and online. Again, we recognise that this is a sensitive product that requires us to manage customer vulnerability and we have provided information on responsible gambling. This explains why the services are PIN protected, require age verification, and allow customers to specify their own spending limit before they begin gambling. There are also subsections on child protection, tips on responsible gambling and details of relevant organisations such as GAMCARE, a charity dedicated to tackling gambling addiction.
We're committed to providing our customers with all the information they need to use their Virgin Mobile phone safely. We provide online and instore information, on the physical effects of using a mobile phone and have introduced Special Absorption Rate (SAR) information (which explains radiation levels) for specific handsets in our catalogues.
We're working hard to advise customers on how to respond to the threat of mobile phone theft including introducing a 'blacklisting' process to stop phones being used once they've been stolen, closely monitoring credit limits for unusual activity, introducing an insurance product and participating in workshops in schools to highlight issues around street crime and text bullying. We've also provided customers with a wealth of new information on the dangers of driving whilst using a handset.
