Canada's Cybertip.ca launched!

Now there are two countries where parents can get immediate help, 24/7, when they feel a child is at risk online. With its just-launched national Cybertip.ca hotline, Canada joins the US's Cybertipline.com, and the UK has a somewhat similar service in the works. For its first two years just covering Manitoba, the goal of Canada's tipline "has been to collect complaints and incident reports about child sexual exploitation or luring on the Internet and forward the most serious to appropriate law enforcement agencies," Canada's CTV reports. "The pilot project gained an international reputation through word of mouth" (and virtually no marketing budget). Now the service is federally funded. According to the just-launched Web site of the UK-based Virtual Global Taskforce, the Taskforce "is piloting a scheme in the UK to allow individuals to report concerns about suspicious and/or inappropriate behaviour online" for UK residents, but - different from the US's CyberTipline.com and Canada's Cybertip.ca, it "should not be used for reporting emergencies or concerns which need an immediate response" (for that, UK parents are advised to "call 999 or contact your local police"). Both of North America's tiplines have companion toll-free phone numbers. The number of the US's CyberTipline is 800.843.5678 and Canada's Cybertip number is 866.658.9022. Here's more on how the CyberTipline works in my Web site.