When children are at home parents are able to monitor where their children are going online. However, when children are away from school, parents lose the control over what sites their children can visit online. But parents need not fear what their children may be viewing online while at school. In early 2001 the Children’s Internet Protection Act was implemented nationwide in schools.
What the act does is ensure that schools and libraries are subject to a certain set of rules that limit what can be viewed on their computers. This act ensures that all computers filter and block pictures that are obscene, pornographic, or deemed as harmful to minors.
With these programs, schools and programs are required to enforce this policy and monitor the activities of minors online. Schools and libraries are also required to implement safety policy that addresses sites that are deemed inappropriate on the internet, make prove to be harmful for minors by using electronic mail, chat rooms, or any other form of direct electronic communications. Children under this law are also not allowed to access to sites that promote hacking, unlawful acts by minors, or disclose personal information about minors.
These programs are also highly regarded because they do not effect funding by the E-rate funding services. This means that funding for the school does not go into implementing these programs. These programs are mandatory and do not require funding to be upheld. The Children’s Internet Protection Act does not tract minor or adults, it simply monitors what is being looked at on any given computer. Further security measures include that the security can only be disabled by an authorized person. And authorized person will be able to disable the blocking and filtering system during any use by an authorized adult for actual research of lawful purposes.
With these measure in place, parents no longer need to be worried about their children using library or school computers to enter harmful sights.