Awarded UK's First Child Safe

RNS Number : 4100Z

Iomart Group PLC

13 January 2011

 



13 January 2011

iomart Group plc

("iomart" or the "Group")

iomart Group is awarded UK's first child safety online Kitemark certification

Parental controls devised by Netintelligence receive official recognition

iomart Group plc (AIM:IOM), the cloud computing and managed hosting services company, is pleased to announce that its cloud based security service, Netintelligence, has been awarded the UK's first BSI Kitemark certificate for child safety online.

Tim Loughton, Minister for Children and Families, announced the certification today during his keynote speech in London at the BETT show, the biggest educational technology exhibition in the world.

The Kitemark for Child Safety Online has been developed through a collaboration between The British Standards Institution (BSI) - one of the UK's foremost certification companies - the Home Office, Ofcom and representatives from internet service providers (ISPs) and application developers.

The certificate is the first to be awarded by BSI for child safety online.

The Kitemark is designed to help consumers identify internet filtering software that has been designed to a high standard and which is both effective and easy to use. The Kitemark aims to give parents confidence in such products, encourage new product development, and most importantly, help to reduce the amount of harmful content seen by children.

In obtaining the Kitemark, Netintelligence was vigorously tested to ensure that it met a range of standards including its ability to block harmful sites whilst allowing access to suitable internet content, flexibility, performance, security and ability to function across a range of operating systems and browsers.

The Kitemark is the latest accolade for Netintelligence's child safety online scheme. Last year it was named Security Project of the Year at the inaugural UK Computing Security Awards for its role in protecting the 270,000 laptops issued to low income families under the Government's Home Access Scheme.

Angus MacSween, CEO commented, "It is a great honour to receive the UK's first certification for child safety online.  The Kitemark is recognised throughout the world as a guarantee of safety and reliability.

"Netintelligence offers a complete security solution with all the support that users need. Its parental controls allow carers to have confidence in the internet, which can be an excellent tool for education and learning.

"We believe Netintelligence to be the most comprehensive internet management tool available and now the award of this first UK Kitemark lends substantial credence to our belief."

Ken Coveney, managing director of BSI Testing Services commented, "Kitemark certified filtering products will give parents tremendous support and offer a level of control that does not compromise parent-child trust. The Kitemark's integrity means that parents and carers will know they are getting a safer and more reliable product, which has been independently tested and will offer the most consistent level of protection currently available on the market. The standard has rigorous requirements and Netintelligence are to be commended at being the first to deliver a product that meets the tough criteria."

Congratulating Netintelligence on their award, Children and Families Minister Tim Loughton said, "The internet is a fantastic resource but it's vital that the Government, parents and businesses work together to make sure children and young people are kept safe online. We know that under half of parents use parental controls and that many would welcome a Kitemark to help them better understand how to keep their children safe.

"That's why I'm delighted that today BSI have awarded the first Kitemark for parental control software to Netintelligence. The standards set by BSI are rigorous and the availability of Kitemark certified software will help give parents confidence that their children will be protected from harmful or inappropriate content on the internet. I hope that other parental control software providers will follow suit and demonstrate their products are equally effective."

For further information:

iomart Group plc	Tel: [phone]
Angus MacSween, Chief Executive
Richard Logan, Finance Director
Peel Hunt (Nominated Adviser and Broker)	Tel: [phone]
Richard Kauffer
Daniel Harris
Threadneedle Communications	Tel: [phone]
Caroline Evans-Jones
Tom Moriarty
Hilary Millar

About the BSI Child Safety Online Kitemark

The BSI Child Safety Online Kitemark is a certification scheme for internet website filtering software produced by software manufacturers. These products can be bought as stand alone products from computer retailers or come as part of an operating system or ISP package. Either way, the software's ease of use, reliability, and performance must meet the scheme's strict criteria.

Software certified by the Kitemark scheme promises to block inappropriate content, block communications via internet-based services that are inappropriate, and prevent unauthorised users from changing or disabling the access control settings.  They also allow for parents and carers to provide an appropriate level of protection either through the use of default settings or configuration, and to update products within the terms of any licensing or subscription requirements.

About Netintelligence

Netintelligence is the cloud based security service of managed hosting and cloud services company iomart Group plc. Netintelligence - is leading the market in delivering web based fully managed, internet security services for consumers and businesses. Netintelligence offers the next generation of internet security products - the 'online', or cloud, security service to IT resellers.

Netintelligence automatically provides a wide range of critical security and protection features direct to an end user's computer via the cloud.

About iomart Group plc

iomart Group is one of the UK's leading providers of managed hosting and cloud computing services. From a single server through to private cloud networks, iomart specialises in the delivery and management of mission-critical hosting services, enabling customers to reduce the costs, complexity and risks associated with maintaining their own web and online applications.

By physically owning and managing its own network infrastructure, including five state-of-the-art data centres in the UK, iomart offers world-beating levels of service to its customers. The Group offers a unique 100% uptime guarantee with all hosting services being engineered to ensure no single point of failure.

Services offered include: Cloud Computing, Managed Hosting, Colocation, Complex Hosting solutions, Content Delivery Networks, IP Transit, Data Centre Services and Cloud Applications.

For further information about the Group, please visit www.iomart.com

 

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