Flagler sheriff offers parents Internet safety tool

Flagler County Sheriff Donald W. Fleming told Historic City News reporters, “The internet is a valuable tool, but it can be a weapon when used by the wrong people.”

“Parents face challenges every day trying to protect their children from dangers and the internet has surfaced as another danger area,” Fleming said in an announcement released today.

Two Flagler County middle school students were reported to be harassing a fellow student through Facebook and MySpace. A 15-year-old Massachusetts girl committed suicide after being harassed at school and online for months. An 18-year-old Rutgers University freshman committed suicide after a secret video of a sexual encounter was streamed online by his roommate last week.

Sheriff Fleming is offering parents another tool to protect their children.

The Sheriff’s Office is distributing copies of “ComputerCOP “, a parental internet monitoring software that enables parents with little or no computer skills to quickly see what their children have been doing online, including what MySpace or FaceBook photos they have posted and if they have been chatting or emailing inappropriate content about themselves or others.

In addition to chat and images, ComputerCOP will also show parents any web sites that their child has visited that have been flagged as containing one or more of the 2,000 keywords or phrases for which the program searches. The keywords searched for can be of a pornographic, drug-related or violent or hateful nature or could be a word or phrases a pedophile might use to solicit a child online.

“Unfortunately, the computer has become a popular medium that children use to harass and bully one another,” said Sheriff Fleming.

The software is available from at the Sheriff’s Operations Center in Bunnell, the Robert E. McCarthy substation in Palm Coast and through the Sheriff’s School Resource Deputies.
To obtain information on the software, visit the Sheriff’s Office website at www.myfcso.us.

“I think this will prove to be a valuable tool for our parents and our children,” said Sheriff Fleming.