PIC-PC Parental Control Software

Safety Features

IM / Chat Safety

All teenagers think they 'know best' and  most give out information online that they shouldn't.


• When  your child keys a word that appears on your 'snapshot' trigger list,  you can  opt to send a warning message (WARNING - THIS CONVERSATION IS BEING RECORDED) instead of what the child has just typed.  We suggest you include your street name, school name, telephone number etc. This will doubtless annoy their friends, but will surely make an internet predator think twice about continuing their grooming. Note that setting  'Stealth Mode' will disable this feature.
• Remember: Web-based chat rooms can usually be treated just like Instant Messengers, courtesy of our web site categorisation. 
• Our Smart SnapShot facility tells you much more than a key logger would - see the emoticons, pictures being received, and (usually) web-cam images.
• If you prefer to use personal supervision (the safest policy), you can restrict browser, email, or IM (chat) activities to specified times when you are around to keep an eye on them.
• NB Protected mode Internet Explorer under Vista/W7 prevents this feature from working, although we are investigating solutions. Make sure it works with your child's installed browser!

Safety during Web Browsing

By logging web page titles and using Smart SnapShots (or using the 'peek-over-shoulder' home network feature),  you can see what they have been looking at, and discuss it with them later. They will soon self-censor! You can configure our smart screen capture to snap every web page they spend more thana set number of seconds looking at.  Once again, you can set it to only record those pages they spend significant time on, not just 'surfing through'. 

• If they use sites that let them create content (e.g. Piczo ), you may well want to activate the keyword - triggered snapshot + deletion mechanism to stop them putting personally identifiable information on their web site / blog.
• You can set up PIC-PC to give some level of control over sites viewed, although this is not its primary function: You can  ban web pages with keywords (you define, depending on what kind of content you wish to avoid)  in the title, or set it up so they can always use web sites with certain (you define) keywords in the title. For example, allow anything with 'BBC' in title, limit and/or snapshot anything else.  Because web site owners want to be found, and search engines put emphasis on keywords in page titles, this can be a very effective method of filtering.  

Why not use dedicated web site blocker software?

• Try Googling for ''Bypass x" where x is your proposed site blocking software. Your kids - or one of their friends -  will do the same search! 
• If they can't bypass it, they will go to a friend's house to look, and you'll never know what they've been viewing!
• Blockers / filters often get it wrong. According to 'New Scientist' magazine, Richard Dawkins' web site (www.richarddawkins.net) was banned by one well known blocker/filter as being an 'occult' site, and classified by another as being 'religious'!
• My Personal Opinion:- Better to know what they are looking at, and discuss it with them, than drive them to use other peoples'  PCs that are out of your control!

What about content filtering?

Content filtering is never 100% effective. It misses text displayed as images, and either misses deliberately misspelled words or is over-zealous about it, blocking perfectly innocent pages. Plenty of sites advise how to bypass software of this type.  For younger children, filters and blockers do have their place.



Remember:- No software (PIC-PC included) can guarantee your child's safety on-line. No software is bug-free, no software is foolproof. The only way to be 100% safe is to stand over their shoulder.  If you can't do that, we aim to make our software the next best thing.

Always try using PIC-PC as a 'child user' to ensure all the features you want are configured and working correctly.




Our Philosophy

Only you, the parent, should be deciding what your kids can and can't do on the computer - not someone in Seattle.  In the real world, you don't lock your kids in the house to keep them safe. You just make sure you know where they go, who they talk to.  If they want to do stuff you don't like, keep them close and monitor things - being too restrictive will just drive them away to places you have no control over. And yes, sometimes you peek round the curtains. The on-line world is just the same.

We  aim to provide you with the most sophisticated tool we can to achieve that goal.