Only 28 per cent of parents in the EU know what their children are up to on the internet and few use software to monitor the situation.

Moreover, internet monitoring software programmes are less effective when it comes to internet access from mobile phones or game consoles and it is almost impossible to filter social networking sites like Facebook and MSN.

These are the main findings of a new study among children and parents in the EU conducted by two academics from the London School of Economics on behalf of the EU’s Safer Internet Programme.

Malta, Luxembourg and Latvia are the only EU member states that were not included in the study. According to one of the authors, Sonia Livingstone, this was due to lack of funding. “We simply had limited funding and 25 countries was the most we could afford,” she said from her office in London.

Prof. Livingstone said the European Commission was funding a follow-up project, starting in November, in which Malta would also be included.

Despite Malta’s omission, the Commission insisted the overall results showed general trends across the EU.

The EUKidsOnline survey indicates that, roughly, only a quarter of parents block or filter websites (28 per cent) or track sites visited by their children (24 per cent). However, there is a significant difference between member states, ranging from 54 per cent in the UK to just nine per cent in Romania.

Seventy per cent of parents surveyed did say they talk to their children about what they do on the internet. About 58 per cent claim they stay near their children when they surf the internet and more than half of parents also take positive steps such as suggesting how to behave towards others online (56 per cent) and talking about things that might bother the child (52 per cent).

The growing risks children might encounter through the internet, is a matter which, according to recent research, is also very much on the minds of Maltese parents.