No. There are several reasons why we believe that anonymous reporting
is not a good idea. The main reason is that anonymous reports are open
to abuse and could themselves be used as a form of bullying or targeted
harassment against students or staff. They could even be used by people
who are not part of your organisation. Also, more information is often
required so a contact - even if their identity is protected by your safeguarding
officer - could be necessary to investigate matters further. It also allows
your organisation to determine whether multiple reports were sent by a
single person, or by multiple people.
The National Crime Agency's CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection
Command) also do not allow anonymous reporting via their website.
There are two reasons for this. The first is so that the system knows which organisation they belong to (based on their login domain) and therefore to whom it should send the report of concern. The second is to confirm the users ID and send it along with the report. See the previous question to discover why anonymous reporting is not a good idea.
Only the person or people you designate in your organisation will have access to the reports. They are not stored on servers accessible by Safeguarding 24 at all. As soon as a report comes in, the details are packaged up into an email and securely sent to an email address of your choice. We recommend you choose the email address of a safeguarding officer or team.
Yes. The web browser extension can only currently be used by desktop
web browsers (Chrome, MS Edge and Firefox) due to restrictions in mobile
browsers, but the web based form can be used by both desktop and mobile
web browsers. We have tested the form with all modern web browsers including
Chrome for Android and Safari for iPhones. We recommend you ask students
and staff to bookmark the web form on their phones for easy and fast
access. This can be the form embedded into your own web site or our
publicly accessible form here:
https://www.safeguarding24.com/form
The reports are sent via secure email to an address of your choice,
usually a safeguarding officer. As long as your email server supports
it, the email is sent securely and encrypted using the TLS protocol.
This ensures that no third party can snoop or tamper with any messages
as they travel from our sending server to your receiving server.
According to a recent Google report, over 90% of email servers support
TLS encryption including Google GMail and Microsoft Office 365. If your
email server does not support TLS then the reports are sent using normal
email protocols.
If the user chooses to include a screenshot with their report (especially useful if the issue concerns online chat, email or a video call) then a snapshot of the currently active browser tab is taken. This image, the page title and the URL are sent in the report. No other browser tabs, windows or parts of the devices desktop are captured. The user gets to see a preview of the screenshot before it is sent to ensure it captures what they are concerned with. The screenshot feature is only available if the user has the Safeguarding 24 browser extension installed.
If you are logged into multiple Google or Microsoft accounts in the same browser window, for example your school account and a personal account, Safeguarding 24 will prompt you to choose one. You must pick your subscribed school account so it knows who to send the report to. If you choose another account by mistake, it will tell you it isn’t subscribed to Safeguarding 24 and you should click the ‘Logout’ button to choose a different account.
Yes. The drop-down list of items a user can choose from can be customised
for each organisation. For example, some schools may want the user to
indicate which year group they are currently in. Others may want a list
of reasons why the user is sending the report of concern (e.g. online
bullying, inappropriate behaviour, concern for another student). Or the
drop-down list can be turned off if you don't need it.
You can also choose a custom message to appear once the form has been
submitted. The default message says: "Thank you for sending your
concern. Someone will deal with it as soon as possible and be in contact
if necessary. All details are emailed to your organisation and kept in
the strictest confidence. No details are stored or accessible by Safeguarding
24."
If you would like it to say something else, for example additional contact
information or include a timescale for replying to messages, just let
us know.
No - not from Safeguarding 24. Even if you are in a video call or chat and you choose to submit a report of concern including a screengrab, the other participants in the call will not know.
Absolutely not. Privacy and security it VERY important to us so the browser extension only runs when you click on its icon. There are no background tasks run by the plugin. It can only capture your current web page information if you tick the box to include it with the report.
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