Unsupervised Brit kids are meeting STRANGERS from the INTERNET

Primary school children are taking risks online

Brit kids are engaged in risky behaviour online, including arranging meetings with people they meet on the internet and playing games intended for older age groups, according to a new study.

A survey of 1,162 primary school age children in the south east and Guernsey found that many were sharing personal information on the web - and 18 per cent had arranged to meet up with friends they'd made online.

Tim Wilson, the information security worker who carried out the survey for ISC2, told El Reg: "Young children seem to approach the real world and the virtual world very differently, and as a result, their perception of safety is skewed when spending time online.

"For parents, there is a strong call to action to ensure they are engaged in how their children use the internet. Bringing the family computer into the living room and having open conversations about potential online dangers will help them play a more active role in the relationships children are increasingly starting online."

The ISC2 study found that 43 per cent of kids were going online every day and 46 per cent spent more than two hours on the net every time they went on. Just over a fifth of the children were using the web after 9pm at night and seven per cent were still online after midnight.

Mostly, kids were using the web to use social networks, watch videos and play games, including 18-rated games like Call of Duty Black Ops and Modern Warfare.

Although the majority of the 18 per cent of children who met online friends in real life took an adult or an older sibling along with them, a third said they just went along with their friends. ®