Teenagers are exploiting the easy availability of pre-paid credit cards to buy alcohol and over 18 DVDs, and gamble on the internet.

The cards, which allow youngsters to top them up with cash before going on a spending spree, do not require any age verification when purchased from a retail outlet or purchased online.

Credit cards issued by banks require adults to go through numerous credit and identity checks before they are issued. But under the loophole, pre-paid cards do not require any of the checks.

The Children’s Charities’ Coalition for Internet Safety, said underage buying of goods and services was becoming a growing problem.

Secretary, John Carr said: “We have been calling for better age verification system for several years to deal with a huge range of things arising out of the online world.”

“It suddenly has got a whole lot worse with the emergence of these pre-paid credit cards. They allow you to go and register yourself at any age you want. They don’t do any check up on the information that you provide them with. The financial services industry needs to step in and stop these practices.” (more)

North Carolina legislators are weighing the merits of a unique bill aimed at governing non-adult access to Internet social networking sites, including thorny issues on the role of parental approval and whether the measure can actually help curb child predation.Senate Bill 132–The Protect Children From Sexual Predators Act–was passed by the state Senate in May and now resides in House judiciary and appropriations committees in a modified form. Read more

NetIDme Service

Check out this recent independent review of the NetIDme service.

Excerpt: NetIDme is specially targeted at young users of internet chat rooms due to the fact that youngsters are vulnerably exposed to internet predators. With this in mind, NetIDme was established in 2004 to provide a secure solution for social networking, online dating, instant messaging, e-commerce, online gaming and online chatting. It is the first identity verification service for the internet. At the time of writing, no other company worldwide has taken the similar approach in tackling the problems occurring in social interactions via the internet.

Recent NetIDme developments:

• NetIDme OpenID
• NetIDme CardSpace

NetIDme Beta Version Due Shortly

Cyberbullying is a significant problem for US teens, shows a recent survey

Almost All Teens Online A recent study shows almost all teens in the U.S. participate in social networking at least once a week.

Social Sites chase members: NetIDme

A recent study by Alloy Media & Marketing found that a massive 96 percent of U.S. teens and tweens go online to participate in a social network at least once a week. more

Cyworld, the social networking platform that lets you create your own virtual home space, has recently added Live Chat to its service.

You can see which of your neighbours are online at the same time, and start a new, live chat with them immediately. A chat link displays in your list of friends online, along with the option of sending a message (Cygram).

A concern is that you won’t be sure who you are speaking to.  A NetIDme account lets you swap your own personal, virtual ID card with other NetIDme members in order to check their age, gender and general location before deciding to chat to  neighbours.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre has launched its first year figures. Amongst the announcements today is that news that the Centre has delivered ThinkUKnow education training to over 750,000 UK school children with sessions looking at online internet safety. 1 million kids will have attended by the end of the academic year. This is a great achievement for CEOP which was set up in April 2006. Its mandate, first and foremost, is child protection: Enpower, Protect, Enforce. This includes using a multitude of resources to focus on tackling high risk, high impact offenders.