A new stranger-proof smartphone for children comes with extensive parental controls to protect their kids.
The child-safe product has built-in parental approval for messaging and call contacts.
As well as a location-tracking feature which enables parents to receive alerts when their children leave designated safe areas.
The phone contains a ‘stay focused’ control that can black access to social media apps.
It comes as more than half of children had been contacted online by strangers, new research has found.
One in three children had been encouraged to take conversations to private platforms, 40 per cent of children had been sent sexual or violent content and 52 per cent of children felt they were addicted to their screens.
It comes after a schoolgirl was discovered dead at home following abusive messages and death threats online.
Megan Evans, 14, faced online taunts such as ‘go kill yourself’ and a Facebook group called ‘I hate Megan Evans’ was set up, according to evidence given to an inquest.
The child-safe product has built-in parental approval for messaging and call contacts. As well as a location-tracking feature which enables parents to receive alerts when their children leave designated safe areas. Above, Fusion X1 by maker HMD
However, a coroner ruled she did not kill herself due to cyber-bullying.
While a report last year found that children as young as three were being manipulated into sending predators sexual pictures and videos.
The study from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) found thousands of images and videos online of three to six-year-olds who had been groomed, coerced or tricked into sexually abusive acts.
The new child-safe phone, the Fusion X1, by maker HMD – the firm behind modern Nokia devices – has been created in response to new research from the firm.
HMD said the aim of the device was to provide parents with an alternative to the dilemma many parents currently face, which is to either give their child a fully-fledged smartphone and the more unrestricted internet access that comes with it, or to keep their child unconnected.
The phone maker has committed to launching two devices in 2025 as part of The Better Phone Project – a year-long scheme which has seen the firm work with parents and experts on what to include in a child-friendly device.
‘Smartphones aren’t just tech – they shape childhoods, family dynamics, and society itself,’ Lars Silberbauer, Buy Proxy HMD’s chief marketing officer said.
‘Few companies are building solutions with children and parents in mind. We are working with parents to do exactly that.
The phone contains a ‘stay focused’ control that can black access to social media apps (file image)
In addition, HMD has confirmed that it will begin rolling out a real-time harm protection feature to its phones built with British cybersecurity firm SafeToNet.
It will use AI-powered tools to automatically spot and block harmful content before it reaches the user, HMD said.
New, dedicated phones for young users are becoming increasingly common.
Last year, US firm Pinwheel launched its child-safe smartphone in the UK for the first time, which places a special parent-controlled operating system on top of the existing software of a Samsung or Google smartphone.
