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TALLAHASSEE, FL -- Attorney General Bill McCollum today issued an advisory encouraging parents to be mindful of their children’s online activities over the holiday break. With schools out for the holidays, children have more leisure time to spend on the internet and could be more vulnerable to internet child predators. The Attorney General cautioned parents to install parental controls, check their computer’s search history and talk to their children about internet safety.

"The best gift you can give your children this holiday season is their safety," said Attorney General McCollum. "Learn how to protect your children on the internet and teach them how to avoid the predators online."

Attorney General McCollum has brought the issue of CyberSafety to the forefront during his administration by educating students and parents about how to stay safe online. Since 2007, the Attorney General’s office has reached over half a million students in over 1,100 schools throughout the state with the CyberSafety program, including 280 schools and 100,000 students in just the past five months.

The Attorney General offered parents the following internet safety tips to help protect their children from internet child predators:

- Keep home computers in a common area;
- Be aware of other computers children can access, such as a friend’s or a library’s;
- Activate the logging features on home computers;
- Know the common features of home computers and software;
- Keep a list of the primary screen names for the home computers and children’s screen names and passwords;
- Monitor children’s profiles on social networking sites; and
- Require children to have non-descriptive and non-suggestive screen names.

More information about the Attorney General’s CyberSafety efforts, including additional tips on how to protect children online, is available at: http://www.safeflorida.net.