Tiscali offers anti-grooming software

Tiscali has announced a partnership with online safety firm Crisp to help parents monitor and protect children when online.

The Crisp software analyses the content of online conversations in an attempt to uncover predators wanting to groom, and potentially abuse, children.

Tiscali will offer the software as a download from March 2008 at £3.50 a month or £42 a year.

"This software will detect a wide range of inappropriate conduct whether clearly of a sexual nature or more devious and deceptive," said Alex Hole, online media director for Tiscali UK.

"We have worked for a long time with organisations such as the Internet Watch Foundation to ensure that children are able to use the internet safely.

"We are committed to working with government to protect children from the potential dangers that exist online."

The technology detects grooming by recognising the ways in which abusers behave, according to Tiscali.

It analyses how they manipulate online relationships, what they say and how they say it. It also looks at sexual content, punctuation, aggression levels, sentence length, typing speed and vocabulary.

The technology also continually learns, becoming more robust the more conversations it analyses. This allows it to refresh its live database of online chat vocabulary and language styles.

As the software only alerts parents when it detects a potential grooming conversation, young people's privacy is maintained. Only the parts of conversations that are flagged as potentially dangerous can be seen by parents.

"The internet allows young people to access immeasurable learning, entertainment and communication opportunities. But they must be able to surf and experience the web in a safe environment," said Andrew Lintell, chief executive at Crisp.

Crisp is expanding the product to tackle the growing issue of cyber-bullying, and will automatically update the version being used by Tiscali customers when it becomes available.