Be Safe Online. Family internet safety guidance
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Editorial standards: how these guides are written, dated and corrected

Last updated · 17 July 2026 Policy page

A safety guide is only as good as the menu it describes. These are the rules the site holds itself to, written plainly enough to be held against it.

Most advice on this subject is not wrong so much as expired. Settings move, apps rename their controls, and a page written three years ago now describes a menu that does not exist, and that is how a parent ends up concluding the controls are unavailable. Everything below follows from trying not to be that page.

Why every page carries a date

Each setup guide shows the date it was last followed on a real device, in order, from the first tap. That date is the only quality claim the guide makes, and it is the one worth checking: if it predates the last system update on your device, trust your screen over the page.

Dates on other pages mean the same thing in a weaker form: the content was reviewed then. Nothing here carries a date that was set once and left, and no page is stamped with the current month simply to look fresh.

What counts as a source

Menu paths come from the platform’s own documentation and from following them on the device. Statistics come from named public reports (a national fraud reporting body, a regulator, a published study), cited with the date they were checked, and linked so you can read the original instead of the summary.

Where a figure cannot be traced to a source like that, it does not appear. This is a subject with a lot of round numbers in circulation, most of them unattributable, and repeating them would make the rest of the site less trustworthy, not more persuasive.

What never ships

  • Invented statistics, or a real statistic without the report it came from.
  • Testimonials, reviews or quotes that were not given.
  • Counters of people helped, families protected, or similar unverifiable totals.
  • Scare copy. The aim is a household that acts, not one that panics.
  • Anything aimed at getting a child’s attention before an adult’s.
  • A signup wall, an email gate, or a download that requires an address.

How the site is funded

The guidance is free to read and there is no subscription. Some pages carry a link to a commercial site where that link is genuinely useful to the reader, and those links can earn the site a commission. That arrangement never decides what a page recommends, and it never buys a placement inside guidance.

The practical consequence for you: a link on this site is worth checking on its own merits, the same way any link is. The pages that discuss verifying an unfamiliar site, starting with the scam websites page, apply to links you find here too, and that is deliberate.

External links point to primary sources wherever one exists: the platform’s own support page, not a summary of it; the regulator, not a news story about the regulator. Links to reporting bodies and helplines are chosen for the reader’s country where that can be determined, and named plainly, never hidden behind a generic phrase.

Nothing here links to a site that harvests details from children, and no page recommends a product that requires a child’s account to work.

Corrections

When something is wrong, the page changes and the date changes with it. Corrections to a factual claim also update the source line so the trail stays intact. A menu path that has moved is treated as a defect, not an inevitability, because for the person following it that is exactly what it is.

What the site covers and who it is written for is set out separately on the about page. If you have found a mistake, the useful report says which page, which step, and what appears on your screen instead. That is enough to reproduce and fix.

Questions about how this site works

Why is there no author name on the guides?

The guidance is published as the site, without individual bylines. What matters for a setup guide is whether the menu path is current and whether it was followed in order, and the date at the top of the page answers that question more usefully than a name would.

Are there adverts on this site?

There is no advertising aimed at children anywhere, no interstitials, and no newsletter gate in front of anything. Nothing on the site requires an account to read or to use.

How do you decide a guide needs re-checking?

Platform updates drive it. When a system update or an app release moves a setting, the guides covering it get walked through again and the date changes. Reader reports do the rest, and they are usually faster than the release notes.

What happens if a number on the site is wrong?

It gets corrected and the source line is updated with it. Every figure quoted here traces to a named public report with the date it was checked, so a wrong number is traceable to a specific claim instead of to general vagueness.

Do you accept guest posts or sponsored articles?

No. Guidance is not sold, and no page here is placed by a third party.

How do I report something that is out of date?

Say which page, which step, and what your screen shows instead. That is enough to reproduce it. Reports about a menu that has moved are the most useful kind, because they usually arrive before the platform documents the change.