Protecting children from sex offenders online

[March 16, 2007]  SPRINGFIELD -- State Sen. Larry Bomke's legislation to require sex offenders to register online identities with law enforcement has won approval in the Illinois Senate and now goes to the Illinois House for their consideration. This legislation, Senate Bill 14, is an effort to protect children from unknowingly chatting with a sex offender.

"On the Internet a person can be easily deceived about another person's identity," said Bomke. "This bill will help parents and law enforcement know where the predators are online so they can protect their children."

Senate Bill 14 adds e-mail addresses, instant messaging identities and other Internet communications identities to the information that a registered sex offender must supply to law enforcement agencies. Currently, sex offenders provide their photograph, current address, school attended, place of employment and employer's phone number.

While pleased that the legislation is moving forward, Bomke emphasized that the best protection is for parents to actively monitor children's Internet usage. Some tips to protect your child online are:

• Keep Internet-connected computers in an open area where you can easily supervise your kids' activities.

• Investigate Internet-filtering tools.

• Help protect your children from offensive pop-up windows by using a pop-up blocker.

• Start teaching your children about privacy. If a site encourages kids to submit their names to personalize the Web content, help your kids create an online nickname that gives away no personal information.

• Encourage your children to tell you if something or someone online makes them feel uncomfortable or threatened. Praise their behavior and encourage them to come to you again if the same thing happens.

[Text from news release sent on behalf of Sen. Larry Bomke and received from Illinois Senate Republican staff]