Child protection services
O2 is dedicated to ensuring that children are safe and protected when using their mobile phones.
Parental Control is a service we offer to help parents to protect their children while they're online. It enables us to restrict children's web access via their mobile to a limited number of sites which are suitable for children. We make sure that the providers of these sites moderate any chat rooms offered to make them as safe as possible. Call 61818 to control web access on your mobile.
More about o2's work on helping to keep children safe when using their mobiles is available at www.o2.co.uk/protectourchildren
We respect our customers' freedom to choose what material they access. But equally, we want to protect our children from seeing things they shouldn't. So our approach to controlling access is strict.
You should check your child's phone is set at the right level by phoning the Age Verification automated service on 61018. Simply dial the number and follow the prompts. This is especially important with a 'hand-me-down' phone, which could have been switched to the 18+ setting by its previous owner. Call 61018 to block 18+ content on your mobile.
More about o2's work on helping to keep children safe when using their mobiles is available at www.o2.co.uk/protectourchildren
Location based are mobile phone services which depend upon information about the location of a person's phone in order to work. For example, when you're lost, you use Streetmap. When you're late, TrafficLine helps you find a quick route. And on O2 Active, there's a service to help you find the nearest cashpoint. Although it might seem like a useful idea to be able to track where your child is via their mobile, at O2 we believe that this can actually bring with it some risks. It means that any third parties, whether they have any harmful intentions or not, could be able to find out the whereabouts of a child's mobile (and potentially, its owner. When you buy your child a new mobile phone or pass down a used one, you should check the location based settings on the phone by dialling 1300, an automated response number. You'll then be able to select from a menu of four different privacy settings. To have maximum privacy for your child, select option 4. You can then check and change this setting as often as you like, by dialling 1300 from the mobile. Please note, if there's ever an emergency and the police need to track down a person's phone, they will be able to request that the location based settings be switched back on, regardless of which setting has been selected.Call 1300 to keep phone location private.
More about o2's work on helping to keep children safe when using their mobiles is available at www.o2.co.uk/protectourchildren
It's the official term for unsolicited, non chargeable text messages that are used by companies as a form of advertising. They often include a premium rate number to call or text back. If you or your child is receiving nuisance Spam text messages, the best thing you can do, unless you're sure it's a genuine message, is simply not respond to it. Instead, you should forward the spam to us on 7726. We'll then investigate the message and take any necessary action we can, consulting the specialists at our Nuisance Call Bureau. If the message seems like a scam - a 'win a holiday' or something similar, then it will usually have a response phone number to ring. In this instance, O2 can bar the number to prevent customers from losing money by dialling it.
In the more complicated cases, we'll look into the messages in more depth, and take further action to prevent any more unfortunate costs or damage occurring to our customers. We also work with PhonepayPlus(the premium rate regulators) and other operators, to help protect children and other customers from Spam texts.To report spam, forward to 7726.
More about o2's work on helping to keep children safe when using their mobiles is available at www.o2.co.uk/protectourchildren
Sometimes when customers reply to a text offer and forget to read the small print, they find that they've signed up to an unwanted premium rate subscription. For example, we often hear from parents whose children have signed up to a new ringtone service - the result being that they as parents end up unwittingly paying out the money for this each month. Luckily, services like these are all very easy to cancel. To stop unwanted subsciption text, simply text STOP to the sender.