BANGALORE, INDIA: To give parents control over what their kids do online, McAfee today announced the launch of McAfee Family Protection Software in India.

The parental control program is aimed at protecting children of all ages from online risks while allowing them the freedom to safely explore the Internet.

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Venkat Krishnapur, senior director, McAfee India said that there has been a drastic increase in online security threats in the last two years. “The threat landscape has changed dramatically – especially in the context of how children of various ages in urban India use the internet and how they are exposed to various forms of threats online. McAfee Family Protection is a powerful tool that helps parents get better insight to the digital lifestyles of their children. Parents can choose to block categories of sites, filter out only a handful of sites, or block nothing at all and simply review online activity reports. Its innovative features such as online activity reports, age appropriate settings and YouTube, games and website blocking and so on gives Indian parents a powerful tool to ensure their kids stay safe when using the Internet.”

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Use of the Internet by Indian children and new parenting challenges:

McAfee commissioned Synovate, to conduct a comprehensive research titled ‘How safe are Indian kids online?’  across 10 cities- New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ludhiana, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Cochin, covering 500 children and 496 parents. Following are key highlights of the revelations from this survey: (Click here for a detailed analysis of the survey)

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·         62 pc of all polled kids have shared personal information online.

·         58 pc kids share their home addresses on the internet.

·         39 pc of all polled kids do not tell their parents about these online activities

·         12 pc of all polled kids had been victims of some kind of cyber threat

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“These findings are extremely relevant from the perspective of Indian parents. As the internet evolves into a new platform for self expression and social interaction, children are indiscriminately indulging in information exchange leading to an increasing rate of cyber exploits. The introduction of technologies like McAfee Family Protection is a step in the right direction as it enables us parents to understand, handhold and mould our children’s online persona and behavior”, said Anindita Mishra- McAfee Cybermum India.

In the context of these newfound online threats, McAfee Family Protection offers a host of essential features to enable Indian families in monitoring their children’s online activities:

·         Age-Appropriate Settings – Settings are customized according to age-groups;

·         Filtering for Music and Online Games –Parents can decide what rating of content children have access to. Types of filtering include:

o   Songs with explicit lyrics from iTunes

o   Access to online gaming sites