Mark Bentley joins us on the podcast to discuss the importance of digital safeguarding for students and what LGfL is doing to help schools in the UK enable cybersecurity and digital safeguarding. Mark also speaks about the new "Online Safety" Bill and the impact of that for digital safeguarding.
LGfL-The National Grid for Learning is a multi-award winning not-for-profit Charitable Trust, which aims to save schools money, keep children safe, tackle inequality, energise teaching and learning and enhance wellbeing. It is a founder member of the National Education Network and providers super-fast fiber connectivity for over 3,000 schools. It is a center of excellence for online safety, cybersecurity and provides support for special educational needs as well as a large online portfolio of online learning resources.
Visit LGfL Website
Links Mentioned
twitter.com/LGfLDigiSafe
Mark Bentley joins us on the podcast to discuss the importance of digital safeguarding for students and what LGfL is doing to help schools in the UK enable cybersecurity and digital safeguarding. Mark also speaks about the new "Online Safety" Bill and the impact of that for digital safeguarding.
LGfL-The National Grid for Learning is a multi-award winning not-for-profit Charitable Trust, which aims to save schools money, keep children safe, tackle inequality, energise teaching and learning and enhance wellbeing. It is a founder member of the National Education Network and providers super-fast fiber connectivity for over 3,000 schools. It is a center of excellence for online safety, cybersecurity and provides support for special educational needs as well as a large online portfolio of online learning resources.
Visit LGfL Website
Links Mentioned
twitter.com/LGfLDigiSafe
[00:00:01] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the podcast. We have Mark Bentley joining us from the UK, Mark Bentley. I’ll let him introduce himself, of course, but he's one of our renown, safeguarding experts in cybersecurity for the education space. He is one of our finest partners works with them. LGfL learning grid for learning. Mark, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for joining us today. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and LGfL for people who are not aware?
[00:00:29] Thanks. Yeah, no, it's great. Great to be here with you. So, I work for LGfL, the London Grid for Learning but we're also the National Grid for Learning now. And basically, wherever schools have a need for a technology that's where the space where we work, so we provide broadband high-speed internet to schools, but then a myriad of other services on top and Centers of Excellence specialisms in various areas, whether that's curriculum and online learning, special needs and disabilities, all safeguarding and cybersecurity. Those last two areas are my areas, I'm a safeguarding and cybersecurity manager, so I oversee everything that we do, both on the side of the technology we put into schools. So that's things like filtering, which is where our partnership with Netsweeper over many years has come from. But then also on the other side, say education, resources for the classroom, training for teachers, on things like safeguarding. Overall, and within the curriculum, we're quite busy. Let's put it that way. But everything where education and technology meets, that's the space where LGfL works.
[00:01:31] Awesome. Yeah, I didn't know how big LGfL was in the UK until I actually got to start working with you guys specifically and the learning more about the education space in the UK. So good for you guys.
[00:01:44] Yah, we’ve got over 3000 schools now. And it's great to be reaching out to new partner schools in Essex and other areas like Liverpool as well. So no, it's great to have a national reach in terms of what we're doing as well, because lots of the other things that I do are around policy work. So, I sit on a few policy bodies in terms of safeguarding and online safety and the like, across the country, things like the UK Council for Internet safety, that was always a mouthful, it's great to be able to feed into these things and support schools from the economies of scale of what we're doing.
[00:02:14] I know there's lot going on around the world, especially in the UK in the education space. My question for you is what are some of the challenges LGfL has identified for students regarding digital safeguarding remotely that needs to be highlighted, and what is LGfL doing to overcome those challenges.
[00:02:31] So it feels like a very long time ago now, doesn't it? When we first went into the first of our several lockdowns, mid-March, I think it was last year. And at the start, we were all taken bit by surprise by all manner of things, whether it was remote learning or toilet paper ever being a precious commodity. But it was a bit of a shock for schools. Lots of schools had spent a long time working on various different remote platforms. For others, they weren't quite on the same journey. But either way, it was a bit of a shock and I think at the beginning, the big challenges were around the technology. Whether it was in place, whether that's in the school, whether it's the platform that you use. Lots of our schools use G Suite from Google, or Teams and 365 from Microsoft for example, or whether it's the devices in the home as well. And then stemming from that there were obviously safeguarding challenges. That's where I got involved early in the beginning, because on the one side, there's technological challenges in terms of settings and making sure you've got everything set up to be nice and safe. So only the right people can join lessons and only the right people can contact your students, that kind of thing. But various other bits and bobs that people just aren't used to, because they weren't spending their lives on Zoom or Teams or Meets like they are these days as well. And that came down to things as simple as being aware of what's going on around you when you're doing something at home. So, my colleague and I were running training for teachers over many months, where we would again and again, see a teacher join us for training and in the background, someone in their house was not entirely fully clothed, shall we say. And that just happened again, and again, even with members of staff in in schools. So, if you can imagine, you know what that's like spread over a much wider number and with people's as well, there's so many pitfalls to being at home that understandably people didn't know about. They weren't aware and they weren't looking out. So, there's a bit of education going on there. But also, there, there were other safeguarding issues around the changes whether that to do with disclosures of abuse, for example, where normally teachers and other members of staff in school would be looking out for changes in behavior or, you know, obvious things like bruises. But often the small things that you can notice when you're in the same room as someone, right how you can do that how you can facilitate those moments for children and young people to talk to school stuff about things that worries them. Obviously, that was very different to the beginning as well. So, there was a whole range of issues even beyond the simple fact that everyone was stressed, and at home, and parents having to help children, and everyone tries to do their work and all these things. And of course, the fact that schools didn't close, because they had plenty of key workers and children and at the same time, so they were kind of running two schools, all at the same time, probably long enough as a list of challenges that were at the beginning. So, what we did right from the beginning, was do a lot of policy work. So, I worked on guidance for schools in terms of settings for some of these platforms that I mentioned before, just to, you know, make sure that the right people can join the lesson. Who can do what, who can share, all that kind of thing. And what to look out for making sure that in the rush to adopt new technologies, that shortcuts weren't taken, because it's really easy to do, when all of a sudden, you've got to install something new. You need to remember the right kind of protections, you know, really boring things in a way, such as who's the administrator, making sure that the person doing the lessons isn't the one who set it up, and they've got it all running from the home computer, because they're just asking, asking for trouble, if that happens, in terms of allegations of abuse, or even unfortunately, abuse as well. So that's its simple things that sound boring, are actually really important. Lots of that, in terms of policy, we did lots of work on that. And the Department for Education refer to some of its documents. So that was good to know, it's being shared widely. Then one of the biggest things that LGfL has done for a long time is that bridge the divide campaign, and that was where, alongside the Department for Education, doing a device rollout to schools to support them with vulnerable children and all those basically, who didn't have access to devices at home. There was a small number accessible to all schools. But we then went out, our CEO John Jackson, did the rounds of some giant tech companies to source probably the cheapest ever, laptops available to schools in all this do a massive procurement for many hundreds of 1000s of devices in order to get them into schools, whether that's Chromebooks or Windows devices, or whatever. So that was a big thing as well. And that's still ongoing at the minute for schools to get laptops cheaper than they would otherwise. And then personally, which fitted in really nicely with that, was the home protect project, which we did with you guys. Yeah, that was for home client filtering. Basically, whether it's a DFE device or any others that schools might haven't be sending home, it was a bit of a gap that many of them didn't have filtering in built on the device unless obviously, they were in school when they'd access the school filtering. So, we worked on this home client filter to be able to equip schools to do that. And by working with Netsweeper, we managed to make free for schools for six months. And it's ongoing now for many that have benefited from it. And that's a really key thing for me, because even though there are parental control settings on home internet providers and devices and the like, it's not the same, it's just simply not the same as what you get in school, the granularity, the complexity of it. And often they're fairly easy to bypass because they're made to be really easy to use, whereas in school, you're used to something else. So, a school has had that duty to protect the children that they were then educating whilst they're in the home. And it was really important to do something about keeping them safe online, when they're inevitably spending much more time online. So that was a massive project, which I'm really proud of as well. We did other things such as advice for parents on employing tutors for catch up, because lots of lots of families wanted to do catch up for curriculum time missed at school, that kind of thing. And just a few things to watch out for to make sure you're doing that safely. Won't be going back into lockdown. But of course, there's potential for bubble closures and things like that of individual classes. Nonetheless, the world has changed, and remote learning is it's here to stay whether you know, people's being sent home early, because there's an event or parents evening or is a snow day people say might be the thing of the past. Now unfortunately, when we will have a bit of sledging down the hill for that one precious day a year. You know, things are different and remote learning is here to stay. So, it's important that those protections are with us as well, you know, all of that is from the lens of the schools. But actually, if you step back on a societal level and just having children, young people at home for you know, the best part of a year on and off whether low level or you know, going up to abuse this technology assisted there all kinds of risks there that we've been working on to support schools and their stakeholders. So that's the young people and the parents as well, to see what they can do about it. And that could be education campaigns. For example, we launched an animation just before the lockdown called undressed students, maybe something we can talk about in a minute. There's all kinds of things along those lines, and I think it all fits neatly into digital safeguarding and with without one of these three than the others fall down a bit then they are education, technology and legislation. There's plenty to be said on all of them. But they're all very interlinked. So, I'm, quite passionate about seeing what we can do to protect all three of those.
[00:10:08] Thank you for that. It's interesting to see that it's not just about deploying technology. And this whole suite of technologies that you mentioned, goes beyond that policy work that sets the standard for us and to the safeguarding industry in the education space. So that really paints a picture for the audience what LGfL does, not just about having a solution in place, but about setting specific policy and campaigns that you're working on, which we'll get to in a minute.
Undressing campaign. We can talk a little bit more about that. I honestly loved it. It's to the point, it speaks to the right audience. Can you speak a little bit more about the campaign itself and the feedback you've heard from people in the education space?
[00:10:51] Sure. So, the campaign is called Undressed, and you can see it that undressed.lgfl.net.
Link in the description for anyone who's interested.
[00:11:00] Of course, yeah, basically, it fits in in a new space to what some been around before. Over many years, we've talked about sexting, or nude sharing, and that that kind of thing that's largely been targeted at secondaries, and teenagers or it happens a lot younger, where they are consensually, sharing self-generated images of themselves, or in some occasions, they're being coerced into it, being bullied into it, that kind of thing. But this is about something quite different, which we felt didn't really have anything targeted to it to support schools in what's otherwise quite a tricky area. And that comes from people like the internet watch Foundation, who I know both Netsweeper and LGfL are proud members of, and the National Crime Agency as well, identifying children being abused online by being tricked into getting undressed on camera. So that could be something like being told, or why don't we see how quickly you can get changed into a superhero outfit or your swimming costume or something like that, just as a seemingly fun competition. And then it being recorded and shared online, as child abuse imagery that often people weren't even aware of until it was found somewhere. And obviously, the law enforcement agencies are doing lots of great work in this space. People like the IWF are doing great work at catching it. But we thought what can we do to support schools to get across this message? Because if we're not talking about teenagers, we're talking about really young children here, go straight in with a message about what not to do and why and go anywhere near explaining it. It's a really tricky, sensitive subject to be broaching in an age-appropriate way. And frankly, doing without parents thinking, what on earth are you talking about to my children, what ideas are you putting into their heads. So, we just wanted to try and make it one of those simple rules about going online that people just accept, there are plenty of them. And sometimes, you know, the more you just accept it as a thing. Sometimes it's easy to ignore as well. But we needed to get it in there. If you're on camera, or you need to get undressed, whichever way around, then you put the device down. So, we did a song and an animation kind of bright colors, appealing to the younger audience, which I'm tempted to sing to you, but I'll spare you and everyone, as long as everyone listening promises to go to undress.lgfl.net to have a quick look at it. And I guarantee you'll be annoyed because you'll be singing it for a while. There we go.
[00:13:20] What I also liked about this Undress campaign. There's a lot of interesting statistics that I didn't even know about one right off the bat that caught my attention is that based off the survey done by 40,000 children, you know, they found that one in 20 people who live stream have been asked to change or undress. That's, that's astonishing. And that's, that's something that was not aware of, and it's good that LGfL is aware of that statistic and tackling that challenge.
[00:13:48] Yeah, yeah. So that came from a survey that we did a couple of years ago now, where we were fortunate to get 40,000 children and young people from schools across the country taking part to talk about their online lives. And yeah, that that was indeed one of the striking, striking statistics that came back from it. And in many ways, it shows the disconnect between reality and what sometimes adults might think is going on or what sometimes education sing on. So, I think we see it as part of our role to try and help inject a bit of reality but also help schools navigate what's often a really tricky tightrope between not being seen to promote or accept things that are against the rules, but equally, they have to support children and young people with their lived reality with what's actually going on and happening for them online. So, I think it serves purpose in that way as well. And that's why we do research, we do focus groups as well to try and find out what's really going on for young people to just help to try and do something about it to support them where they're at, right, and pump them messages which is sometimes so oversimplified and perhaps unhelpful as result
[00:15:00] Yah, a common problem for schools, multi academy trusts and districts where there's a huge gap and disconnect between at school learning and at home learning. I know you'd briefly mentioned bridge the divide campaign and the Chromebooks that went home for cheap. Can you elaborate more about that? What was the feedback?
[00:15:21] It's helpful for us to be a not for profit, educational charities. So, any deals we make often it's because of our economies of scale with thousands of schools, we can get much better deals on behalf of schools. We often try and give away whatever we can, and obviously, you can't give away absolutely everything if you have to buy it in the first place. But because of our scale, we managed to procure an enormous amount of devices and well over hundreds of thousands of have now gone into schools. As a result of that, with them getting these. It's not rock-bottom prices, or in terms of bargain bin because we've gone for a really quality devices at really low prices. But it's really helped to make massive savings, I think the latest estimate was around 10 million pounds saved by the school's multi academy trusts that have bought some of these devices. So much so that we've been able to launch a new program just now called Bridge the Divide with a similar thing, because as I said, even though schools are back in full time, there's still there's need for these devices. And now that we're trying to do special low pricing for areas of deprivation. Tricky in terms of vulnerable pupils, and families where who really needs financial support. So, we're trying to make sure that the cost is as low as low as possible for those areas, as well. And so what we're trying to do is really reach out to those areas of the country that maybe feel they've been left behind and making sure that we can support them in the way that they need in terms of access to the digital world, which is essentially as well for the economy and the leveling up agenda that the government is going for as well to try and make sure that we are supporting all schools everywhere.
[00:16:57] Can you help the listeners understand in the UK, how the new online safety bill will impact your safeguarding and maybe your opinion of that as well?
[00:17:07] Yeah, sure. So you'll be excited to hear that I have actually read all 145 pages of it and I'm still here. Obviously there are some bits of legalese that are tricky for mere mortals to understand, but I've plowed through it. And overall, I think it's brilliant. So, we've been involved in this process for a long time now. It was the time of the green paper, as the very first draft of government looking at legislation was I think, about five years ago, where I work with some people from the DCMS, that's the Department for digital Culture, Media and Sport, who look after the Internet safety strategy. And the UK, I worked with them to do some teacher workshops in terms of helping the government to hear from teachers about what's going on in schools. And it's been a long journey since then, from the original consultation around the green paper that led to the white paper. And now the bill has been has come out in draft form to become an act, hopefully very soon. So, I've plowed through it. And there are some really great things. So, the big headlines for me is that it's great in terms of social media, which is a slight change from previous version, in that it's really ramped up in terms of the duty of care and social media companies are definitely involved in there. And I think it's going to be really powerful in terms of combating grooming along the lines of the age-appropriate design code, which came out recently from the ICO the Information Commissioner's Office. It's echoing the same language of if children are likely to be on a platform. And if people can contact each other there, these companies are going to fall into the scope of it. So, it's not about whether a company says Oh, yeah, we're, we're aiming this to children or we're not is not relevant, it's whether they're likely to be there. So, I think that's really excellent. And Offcom is to be the new regulator for online harms. And we've known that for a little while now. But they have spent a long time as the regulator for telecoms in the UK. So, they've got lots of experience as a regulator, and more recently as video sharing platform regulators. So, it's really good to see that they're, as well. And these duties of care for companies that are operating in the UK, regardless of whether they're officially UK based or not, is really great to see this. There's so much commitments that they have to make, that they have to document and do transparency reports, and the like in order to make sure that they're looking after young people, that are keeping them away from content that they shouldn't be seeing or that could be harmful to them. It really looks like it will be something with teeth because Offcom are going to have the powers to enforce penalties of 18 million pounds or 10% of global revenues. And if you think for some companies 10% of global revenues, not just UK revenues is quite a lot of money. So, people are going to take it seriously. I think that's excellent. And as I say for social media to now be fully in scope is really great as well. And I Do think there has potential to change a lot to really open up the market. So, I spend a lot of time talking to organizations that do what's now called safety tech. The UK is quite big in the safety tech space of, you know, it's companies such as yourselves, net sweeper that do filtering lens, lots of companies doing monitoring for schools, as well. But there's all sorts of other great organizations like large and small, that are doing really clever things that can keep people safe online. And there are lots of tech companies that really want these technologies and integrate them already and lots of examples of that. But I think having the legislation is really going to make everyone up their game. And as I said before, if you've got the three pillars of education, technology and legislation, you really do need them all, to come into play that because that will kind of bring each other up, that technology exists, but the legislation will help it improve. But also make sure that people use the technology that exists companies for analyzing images, for example, and it all sorts of things that could really be tied in at the heart of platform. So, I'm really excited about the prospects of the safety tech industry really picking up and taking off in that respect as well. The great news, I think there are a few things that are potentially missing and can be improved over the next few months of the year, because the bill is now going into pre legislative scrutiny, which I think basically means lots of committees of MPs and Lords are going to sit down and go through it with a fine tooth comb, which is excellent. But there are a couple of oddities perhaps such as previously there was in the Digital Economy Act, which was from a few years ago, a section about age verification on online pornography. And this bill repeals that one without really replacing it. So, the bill will cover social media companies that have any pornography on them, which is excellent, but not necessarily the commercial ones. Unless they have user commenting and sharing contents and things like that, which should be relatively easy to turn off. So that's a bit of a gap in the bill, but one that already the government has said they're going to have a look at, Oliver Downton from the DCMS, he's already said that he's open to conversations on that. So, I'm enthused and encouraged that the government does actually want to do something about it, that they do want to, you know, it's already a massive piece of work, but I think they're, they're doing their best to improve it over time as well. Um, so that would be one area definitely worth picking up on as well. And there are there are other issues that are in the news quite a bit. For example, encryption, end to end encryption is a massive topic at the minute and quite polarizing because on the one hand, you have security people say oh no, or privacy, saying end to end encryption is absolutely essential. You know, sometimes not open to debate on that side and other people on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, saying everything has to be open all the time. And obviously, we need to find a balance, we need to protect privacy, at the same time as keeping children safe. And not just children. Indeed, the act is about adults vulnerable and others at the same time. But I think there's a lot of work needs to be done on that and making sure that encryption isn't used as an excuse not to do stuff. The great technologies that are out there to scan for child sexual abuse material or terrorist material, because you can't see it if it's encrypted end to end, that kind of thing. And there are ways around this. So, it really doesn't have to be polarized in the way that the debate has been over the last little while. And I really hope that there will be a slightly more open debate on that. Because there's, there's lots of scope for improving things there as well. And then another thing that I really think will over the time of this scrutiny of the bill that will come up again and again, is age verification, which isn't mentioned by name in the bill. But there's lots about working in different ways for different ages of children and making sure things are appropriate and proportionate for them. And age verification certainly plays a role in that as well. And as part of my work, I've contributed to the Digital Policy Alliance investigation of some of this as well. And I've met there quite a few people from major application companies that are really doing great work on proven platforms that can already be integrated in order to help whether it's for something obvious, like over a teams for online pornography or whether it's over Thirteen's for certain social media sites or indeed much more graduated approaches, which hopefully will, we'll be coming in as well. So, it's not just about are you over 13? Are you over 18, but hopefully something a bit more sophisticated than that. And there's lots of great companies that are going to help and make that possible. So yeah, I would say overall, really exciting content at the bill. There's few areas to work on, but there's all kinds of experts that are contributing. So, it overall looks quite exciting.
[00:24:40] Definitely a lot with that online safety bill. Thank you for briefing us on that. With this new online safety bill, what do you think the future lies with this? Obviously, you mentioned a lot of work and you mentioned specifically what could do in the future. But what does that mean for LGfL? As well, next maybe six months or even a year? What does that look like for the safeguarding cyber security space?
[00:25:02] Well, bear in mind that was only page one of 100, the online safety bill. So, I'm moving on to page two now. So, I get your sleeping bag ready, it will be a while. Yeah, I think everything that's going on in that space will certainly influence what we do. And working with schools on that, you know, coming back to my three pillars, in terms of education, people in schools on the ground have got to deal with what's in front of them, they can't be up lobbying parliamentarians every day, they can't be heading down to a data center or development team to work on the technology. They have to trust others to, to do that and get great partners. And we try and link up all these areas. So that's what we'll continue to do. Continue to offer policy advice to schools help them with their policy templates. But again, policy has got to become practice. So, it's working with them on case studies and seeing how they can actually have impact in their schools. But one thing that's particularly exciting me over the next few months is we're going to be introducing a new monitoring service. So that's really big for LGfL and big for our schools in terms of safeguarding. And so, I don't know how it is in in Canada, where you are, but here schools have to do appropriate monitoring, as well as appropriate filtering. So, we're going to be really investing in that. And it's not just about a service that we provide to schools, but we want to use this to work with them in terms of their safeguarding education, whether it's in the classroom, or they're proactive steps that they take to keep children safe, based on what's actually happening. So, I think that's going to be a bit of a game changer in terms of knowing what's happening in schools in London, in UK as a whole and you know, drilling down to local areas and specific schools to make sure that schools no this kind of thing is going on, we need to do something about it. But not just in a reactive sense, but also proactive.
Other things that are that are going on at LGfL, as I said, Richard divide two is coming along with new devices, which my colleagues are working on as well, we're doing great new devices there, we've got filtering upgrades coming that we're working on with you continuing to develop things with home protect as well. And of course, school life goes on. So, it's a tough times to recover from COVID, if that's the word, there are lots of opportunities where there's also important things that schools need help recovering from. So, I have colleagues in other areas, working on curriculum and mental health and well-being version needs, all those kinds of areas are really important to schools success to, you know, develop young people that can go into the world happy, healthy and educated in the in the traditional sense as well, you know, as well rounded individuals. And that's what we're all about trying to support schools in whatever it is that they need. And again, we'll be doing more in terms of cybersecurity, as well. So, my role encompasses that as well. And we're working with some great partners in that space. Obviously, people hear security and think of phishing and antivirus and that's quite true. We've got some great partners in that area. But we're also looking to do a bit more on support schools to help them work out what it is they need to do to not fall foul to lots of attacks that have been going on. Because they've been, they've been lots of ransomware attacks targeted at schools of late and some are fallen for it at large and small. And it's you know, it's an ever-increasing challenge these kind of scams that can lead to much bigger things. All sorts of schools are suffering from that as well. So, we worked really hard to protect them from that in the first place to do things like DDoS protection with partners. For the internet, there's going to schools, but then you know, there are lots of tools that we can give to schools, but a lot of it comes down to education as well. Not just for the young people, but for the staff as well. We've got lots on their plates. So, I could go on., but yeah, we're doing lots of things in the in the policy space in the technology space, supporting schools, where they're at, really, and hopefully responding to their needs.
[00:29:01] Yeah, but thank you for painting a real picture with that new online safety bill and what that really means for safeguarding in the UK and how LGfL plays a part in that. Before we wrap up, Mark, any closing remarks or thoughts you want our listeners to take away with them?
[00:29:18] So I think by way of closing remark, if you're going to go away and forget everything that I said, Maybe just remember to have a think about those three pillars of education, technology and legislation, depending on what your role is. That often those are three things worth having a look at. If we're talking education, maybe have a think about what are the messages that we're giving to children about staying safe, whether it's online or beyond. Because sometimes these messages have been around for a long time and they are just kind of oversimplified and sometimes not very helpful. In fact, I wrote a fascinating blog about facts or fallacy, 10 things we've been saying for many years. And sometimes if you pick them apart, you might think, does it actually make sense? So, you could have a look at that. And if you wanted to find more on that, that's fof.lgfl.net. So that's one thing. But think about how the education ties in with the others as well. For technology, have a review of what's going on at your school, especially now that things have maybe Calm down, I'm sure people will throw things, the thought of someone saying things have calmed down, because I know they haven't in some ways. But it is another transition point where it's good to look back at the technology we've been using over the past year. Is it set up correctly? Is it safe? Are the settings correct? And is it appropriate? Are there new technologies we could use instead, to make life simpler to help with teaching and learning? but above all, of what we're talking about today is keeping everyone safe. And that's for the staff as well as the students as well. And just keep an eye out for the legislation. Because I think even though some of your listeners might be thinking, that's a bit dull, we just need them to tell us what the law is once they finish talking about it. But actually, it's a really important process and good to get involved in speak to your local MP about it and find out what their thoughts are on what's going on. And keep an eye out in the news of topics such as online pornography, age verification, encryption, things like that as well, because all of these things are going to come together as well. And maybe even though, if we're talking schools and safeguarding and technology, often we think about what's going on in schools, but think about what's going on at home as well reminds me of the conversation we had about home protect. So that's the filtering service we're doing for home or that that's only for school managed devices. But there's plenty of things that you can do to support schools as well. We recently launched a resource, which is open access, which you can have a look at which you can share with parents if you go to parentssafe.lgfl.net. Basically, it's a portal that you can share with parents about helping them to help their children stay safe online. And its not a giant LGfL advert, it is all about pointing to yes, some of our stuff, but loads of things from the other great organizations in this space. So, there's some wonderful videos from the IWF, from Childnet, there's resources from Co-op and parents Zone and all sorts of agencies that have got great things, their parental controls, how to do them, whether it's on a device or a game, and so on all the links that you could need, and hopefully everything that you need to support parents through this error as well, which is often really tricky. Whenever we speak to schools about staying safe online, often within the first couple of sentences, they talk about supporting parents and how to do that. So hopefully, this site is something that you can refer them to and, and use as a guide as well, in terms of your topics and themes on that. So have a look at that as well. And I could go on but that's probably no more top tips anymore if I keep going because I'll give you another 20. So maybe I'll leave it at that.
[00:32:49] Thank you, Mark, real thank you for taking the time to join us and educating myself and the rest of the audience about what's going on in the UK and what LGfL’s doing. Pleasure having you. Thank you.
[00:32:59] Thank you for having me. Yeah, no, it's really great to talk to you. And it's great for LGfL because we've been partners with Netsweeper for a long time now. And it's always good to see all the great things that you guys are getting up to as well.
[00:33:12] Yeah, we're definitely working on safeguarding and the education space has been our main bread and butter, and we're making sure that we really stay on top of that, and definitely working with LGfL has improved that a lot. So, thank you for that. And thank you for the rest of the audience for tuning in. Until next time, thanks.