Securing Trust: The latest in Parental Controls for fixed and mobile networks
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It’s well documented that more devices are connecting to the internet and children’s devices are no exception. Whether it’s a smartphone, gaming platform, tablet or eBook reader, children are increasingly able to go online. The method these devices use to connect can be via a fixed or mobile network and sometimes both.
What do parents think of this increased access, do they want protection, would they pay for it?
This webinar will present the results of a new independent survey of parent’s attitudes and requirements, as well as highlighting the latest examples of real threats that children face today, including bullying, phishing, grooming, malware downloads, unintentionally subscribing to costly services or accessing inappropriate material.
The webinar will also focus on what can be done by the service provider community to address the growing demands for a greater level of personalised protection. For many service providers to date, the ability to provide a Parental Control service that covers all devices and connection types, has seemed complicated, expensive, difficult to deploy and generate meaningful revenue from.
This webinar will showcase how to deploy a Parental Control service that:
- Protects all voice and data connections on both fixed and mobile networks
- Addresses all mobile devices – not just mobile handsets
- Overcomes usability barriers found in existing services
- Is able to provide a range of revenue generating services – from basic protection to complete security customisation
- Offers an innovative solution to the complexity of deploying voice services
- Stops techniques children use to bypass Parental Controls
Tags; Adaptive Mobile, Archive, Parental controls, telecoms.com
Thank you for all your questions today. This Q&A is now closed. You can send your questions directly to Gareth at: gareth.maclachlan@adaptivemobile.com
Hi Gareth! Is it possible get more information about the network protection architecture? For example about the content filter infrastructure, servers, networking devices, etc.?
Hi Kiss.
If anyone wants more details on our platform, please drop me an email on gareth.maclachlan@adaptivemobile.com
Does the system has capabilities to integrate with PCRF? or it comes as a standalone entity?
Hi Varsha. A couple of operators are asking us to integrate with PCRF as a form of AF – although this will be as an extension to Rx. Other operators have us act directly with the PCEF (GGSN or DPI) dependent on their network. Today, all our deployments are without PCRF integration, but we think the PCRF has a useful role to play in allowing us to surgically select the traffic we need to see for active filtering.
Regarding Blackberry traffic decoding, how this model works? Do you have agreement with BB to decode the traffic from their cloud or it’s a kind of software module provided by BB embedded into your device?
Hi. We offer a hosted solution for this. Please feel to drop me an email on gareth.maclachlan@adaptivemobile.com for more info.
Can you indicate what architecture model is used for your solution? Does it differ on size of operator or traffic supported (i.e. Mobile or Fixed)?
…….I’m assuming you interact with a PCEF and a PCRF, where does the solution set in a network architecture
how do you enforce the policies configured within the Adaptive Solution in the network?
Hi Ayoub – will try to answer your questions, and those of your colleague together. Enforcement can happen in one of two ways – either through an existing node acting as a PEP (policy enforcement point) such as a GGSN, SMSC, STP or DPI node etc; or by us sitting inline for traffic (acting as an enforcement point in our own right). The decision will depend upon the scenario (eg is it opt-in parental controls, or full security protection – mobile malware, sms spam etc), and the operator’s architectural preferences. Both models are deployed equally across customer base today.
Re PCRF, we see a value in using the PCRF as a mechanism for determining which traffic we see based on the security reputation for a device; but we are only just getting operators asking for us to consider integrating to the PCRF in some manner (where we would be a pseudo- AF), and where the interface is not defined in 3GPP. This is predominantly for LTE based networks.
is this service locked to a phone or sim card?
Hi Bonnie. Because the solution is running within the network, we are applying policy based on a subscriberID – MSISDN typically in a network, so that transferring sim cards between phones does not allow a child to bypass the controls.
Hi Gareth, good presentation. Do you actively work with MNOs in Africa? Secondly, do you find the online security awareness a big issue in developing versus developed markets?
Hi, yes we are deployed in several MNO’s in Africa. Awareness of security issues do vary by region – particularly user awareness of sms spam / frauds, and whether mobile malware is a risk will depend on smartphone penetration. However, we find parental (and also corporate controls) are fairly universal as a need, but where the type of control that is most important will vary by region.
sorry, I may have missed in your presentation, when it comes to kids what are the target age groups?sex?
This is really up to the operator’s marketing approach. Most operators will define some default policies to make it simple for a parent to get started – eg under 10, 10-12, 12-14, 14-16 16-18 etc. But they will also have policies that are default for individual users who want to limit inbound sms / mms, or for corporate controls.
The web is expanding resourcefully and so as the necessity…. I think the better idea to activate parental control is if Parent can have the opportunity to set customized list web sites according to the requirement.
Can you provide such solution to customize the boundary according to the necessity?
Is there any external dependencies to do so?
Hi. Our platform is designed specifically to put parents in charge – and so we allow parents to set their own whitelist / blacklist, time of day rules etc for each of their children. And as we are designed for telecom operators, this can be for networks of 50m+ individual policies without affecting performance.
Are there separate physical deployments of solution in case of controls in voice and data services like that for SMS/MMS/Block numbers and website filters?
Varsha, we will often acquire the traffic from different parts of the network (eg an SMSC and an IN platform), but it is a single platform implementation of our software. So that when a policy is set up and applied, it can be applied equally to all traffic visible to the NPP.
Gareth, could your explain how the Parental Control will work for the fixed line services. How parents can protect children’s devices, which are hidden behind the aDSL or Ethernet routers?
Hi. There are two approaches. Some operators who have control of the CPE are looking at adding in http headers; but the usual method is that there is a defined policy which applies to the household, and pin based authentication of a user when they try to go outside this policy. We use this to effectively allow that individual user to have a different policy applied for a defined time period. The benefit of this approach is that it doesnt require any client software to be installed, or any changes to a CPE.
Thanks for a great presentation, will you be sending out the presentation so that I can discuss it internally. Best wishes Bonnie
Happy to send out the slides – please drop an email to info@adaptivemobile.com if you are interested in receiving them.
Why do you think the take up for these types of content filtering services seems to be so slow in the UK compared to other countries – especially outside of Europe?
Hi David.
Partly availability of information – most parents are aware of PC-based software but less so of the options for mobile, and to a certain extent because UK operators were some of the first to implement basic adult content controls for mobile data. It is only now that parents are looking for broader and more flexible controls, rather than the one-policy fits all approach that is currently in place. The UK government discussions on Active Choice will drive more awareness and take up.
Hi Gareth. As a MNO, we find that parents seek out controls AFTER they have had an issue.(a bit like burglar alarms!). How do we pro-actively encourage parents to use controls?
Hi Rory. The most effective approaches we’ve seen are to offer Parental Controls in store and online as services; and by making it a point of differentiation over other operators. The UK Active Choice discussions of course may start to make it a requirement for all users to be notified as part of an initial access.
Can you send any picture for acceptance by the parents before sending?
Hi Petri. Yes, we can do this as part of the notification process. This also helps user behaviour – kids are less likely to even try to send something inappropriate (ore receive) if they know their parents will get a copy or have to approve it.
Do you protect PC’s and Laptops as well, or just Mobile Phones?
Hi. Our platform works across all devices – not just laptops/Pc’s, but also across gaming consoles, internet enabled TV’s etc which are often the device of choice for kids.
If your client is a mobile network, how do they go about helping to protect children accessing the internet via devices connected to a home broadband network?
Hi Chris.
We use a hosted platform and client side components to be able to “tunnel” the traffic for controls for web even when the access network is a home broadband / wifi network.
Andi – sorry I think I answered this in the wrong thread before.
Hi. Our platform works across all devices – not just laptops/Pc’s, but also across gaming consoles, internet enabled TV’s etc which are often the device of choice for kids.
How much parental control protection is realistic; 100%, or for example max 90% because not all loops or new options can be covered?
Bryan, the focus is typically on preventing access to inappropriate sites; and depending on the filter settings, we can ensure children cant access unknown sites until they have been categorised. Similarly the platform prevents known loopholes – eg anonymisers, cache engines, IP address access, Https access. We don’t recommend operators commit accuracy levels to parents however, as for example operators can’t control what happens over some peer to peer IM messages, or shouldn’t be put in a position where they are at risk of copyright infringement by trying to modify content sent from a social network site. There is always a trade off for a parent between how strictly they want to lock down the device, and notification / reporting can be useful in identifying when the parent needs to also engage with the child.