POLITICIANS have called for stricter internet controls after pornography was linked to a rise in the number of young Scots involved in sex crimes.
They also claimed that parents should be doing more to monitor children online following a report released yesterday by the Scottish Government which showed a 10% rise in reported sexual offences.
Rape Crisis Scotland and the Women's Support Project said an increase in young people becoming involved in sex offences could be linked to the availability of extreme pornography, prompting a reaction from the Conservatives, Labour and the LibDems.
East Dunbartonshire MP Jo Swinson, who recently took part in a parliamentary inquiry on online child protection, called for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to use an opt-out system, where customers are blocked from accessing adult material online.
She said: "It's very difficult to pin down exactly what is causing these attitudes by young people, but given that there's very easily available pornography online – and not just the lads mag, page three images, but really explicit, hardcore pornography – it's not hard to imagine that it helps to create a warped view of relationships.
"The parliamentary inquiry found that an opt-in system would be favourable when it comes to security settings and TalkTalk are already using this system, but there's a lot more that could be done. I would urge other ISPs to look at the TalkTalk model."
Scottish Conservative MSP John Lamont added: "We need to investigate measures such as having filters switched on as the default option, or blocking all adult content unless you decide otherwise."
Glasgow MP John Robertson said more needs to be done to raise parental awareness of the security tools available to them.
A recent survey by Glasgow-based internet security firm Westcoastcloud showed almost one in 10 Scots parents have not installed any protection software on their computers and 68% admitted they were not confident in their abilities to keep their children safe online.
Firm director Bill Strain said: "A big chunk of children have relatively unfettered access to the internet and parents need to take reasonable steps to protect their children."
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