Brightfilter News

Brightfilter supports Children's Hospice South West in 240 mile bike ride

 

Congratulations to Peter Hodgson and John Van Ham for successfully completing the Ride for Precious Lives 2010! Peter, CEO of Brightfilter and John, Technical Director, cycled 240 miles across 3 days through Cornwall, Devon and Somerset to finish in Bristol. The team of 84 riders has raised £70,000 so far for the charity Children's Hospice South West, which provides care for terminally ill children. 

 

If you'd like to contribute to the worthy cause, you can still sponsor Peter by visiting:
www.justgiving.com/peterandcarylhodgson

and John at: 
www.justgiving.com/johnvanham 

 

Brightfilter Parental Control software receives glowing reviews in the press

 

Brightfilter's Parental Control software has been receiving some positive reviews in the press recently:

 

                

 

   85% - "straightforward to set up, unobtrusive, secure and effective... it's one of the best     parental control solutions on the market."

 

 

 

 

       8/10 - "a high-quality piece of software that will enable parents to be a little more        confident that their tech savvy son or daughter isn't getting themselves into deep        water behind their back – and that has to be worth a lot." 

 

 

4/5 - "a great way of allowing casual browsing, safe in the knowledge that your kids will have to come to you before viewing challenging subject matter."  

 

 

4/5 - "this competent web filtering service is a much better fit for British social mores than most if its American counterparts making it a sensible choice for wary parents."

 

 

 

    4.5/6 - "Brightfilter’s web-based user interface is easy to use, even for parents who    do not know much about using the internet and who have never used parental            control software before. Default settings make it easy to control and monitor online                                     access for every member of the family."

 

Safer Internet Day & Caught in the Web

 

9th February 2010 is Safer Internet Day, a campaign taking place across Europe to help protect children online.

 

With this in mind, Brightfilter would like you to consider if your children are safely protected when using the internet at home.

 

If you are concerned about what your children are getting up to online, why not try a free trial of our parental control software? 

 

Once installed, Brightfilter Parental Control can be set up by parents to determine what their children are accessing online and what time of the day they are able to log on.

 

Click here to download your free trial.  

 

Brightfilter is also looking forward to a new children's TV programme called 'Caught in the Web' that will be broadcast today on BBC1 at 4.55pm. The show is fronted by Doctor Who star David Tennant and supports our beliefs about helping to educate children about the dangers of the internet. 

 

Brightfilter on BBC Inside Out

 

On 25th January 2010, BBC Inside Out broadcast a documentary on the teaching resource website Sparklebox, which was being run by convicted paedophile Samuel Kinge. 

 

Presenter Josie d'Arby speaks to Brightfilter CEO Peter Hodgson about the implications of Sparklebox and the wider issues surrounding protecting children online.

 

 

 

Click below to view the clip.

 

 

Brightfilter announces winners of BETT 2010 competition

 

Brightfilter is pleased to announce that the four winners of a McAfee biometric encrypted USB key are:

 

Jane Fletcher - Harris Girls Academy, UK

 

Michael Idema - Atlas College, Netherlands

 

Felicity Tomlin - Keston C E Primary, UK

 

Margaret Moss - Manchester Hospital Schools, UK

 

The winners will be contacted by email shortly to arrange delivery of their prize. 

 

BBC Inside Out interviews Brightfilter at BETT about teaching website Sparklebox

 

At BETT 2010, the BBC visited the Brightfilter stand to interview CEO Peter Hodgson about issues surrounding protecting children online.

 

The interview follows the news that 28 year old Samuel Kinge was last week jailed for a second time for downloading abusive images of children.

 

 

He had been running the Sparklebox teaching and parenting resource website used in thousands of schools. This was blocked in some areas after internet safety officials discovered who was running it and that there had been some “worrying interactivity”.

 

The case comes just weeks after the government slightly relaxed incoming rules on how people who work or volunteer in schools are vetted. It appears to expose a potential loophole in how paedophiles could potentially access young children through technology.

 

Kinge, who was known as Daniel Kinge before changing his name by deed poll, had been jailed for nine months in 2005 for downloading images of children being abused from the internet while working at a Warwickshire school.

 

Access the full article online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8462650.stm

 

Users of Brightfilter Parental Control software can block Sparklebox by adding sparklebox.co.uk to the blacklist within their filtering profiles. Brightfilter Parental Control provides customisable profiles easily set within the 'my account' area.

 

 

Job Vacancy at Brightfilter

 

BRIGHTFILTER JOB DESCRIPTION: Major Accounts Manager
 
A vacancy has arisen for a Major Accounts Manager at Brightfilter to look after certain key accounts and leverage sales opportunities for the company across all product sets.
 
• Sales Generation and forecasting/goal setting  including handling inbound and outbound sales calls, onsite meetings at client premises and managing the sales process.

 

• Account Management – managing the day-to-day interaction with customers and maintaining suitable business records as well as up selling products to existing customers.
Ensuring that technical queries are resolved to customer satisfaction via technical support.

 

• Key contributor to strategy for marketing Brightfilter to industry sectors, specifically Education vertical.

Please email office@brightfilter.com for further information on how to apply.

Brightfilter exhibiting once again at BETT 2010

3rd October 2009, Bath, United Kingdom. Brightfilter are delighted to be attending BETT 2010 on the 13th-16th January next year. BETT is the world’s largest educational technology event in which Brightfilter will be demonstrating current products such as the BoundaryServer web filtering service - as well as a new line of products which include Anti-Virus and online backup for schools. Visitors to our stand (B59) can enter a competition to win a Biometric USB Key and obtain a FREE copy of our Parental Control solution for the home - More details to follow. 

Windows 7 and Brightfilter Parental Control

 

23rd September, 2009, Bath, United Kingdom. Hot News from our Testing Labs - Brightfilter Parental Control 2009 is fully Windows 7 compatible!

 

The latest operating system release from

 

Microsoft - Windows 7 - is due for release next month. The developers at Brightfilter have been working in-line with this new release and have passed Brightfilter Parental Control 2009 to be fully compatible with the planned release.

 

Customers wishing to trial or upgrade the Brightfilter Parental Control software can visit www.brightfilter.com to obtain the latest release. Subscribed customers can upgrade to the latest Brightfilter Parental Control software free of charge.

Free Software!

 

25th June 2009, Bath, United Kingdom.
Brightfilter have today launched the CD version of the Brightfilter Parental Control software.

 

This retail-ready version is available to all interested parties - Schools, Parent-Teacher Associations, Local Authorities, Charities and Commercial enterprises for re-sale and distribution.  Please contact us to receive a free hard-copy for evaluation.

 

 

 

Brightfilter CEO supporting Children's hospice South West

 

Peter Hodgson, CEO of Brightfilter Limited is undertaking a 240 mile bike ride with up to 100 others to raise money for Children’s Hospice South West.

Children's Hospice South West accepts children and families from the South West, from South Gloucester, Bristol, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall.

All the children who use the Hospice have Life Limiting, or Life Threatening Conditions, which mean that they are not expected to live into adulthood. Some families may use the hospice for many years, from the time the child is first diagnosed, they may come for planned respite, or for emergency care, depending on their needs and the support that the family request.

The ride is called “Ride for Precious Lives” and takes place over three days of June 19th to 21st  2009

Sponsors can donate money to support the fabulous work of the hospice at

justgiving.com/peterhodgson007

30 Day Brightfilter Trial Released

4^th April 2009, Bath, United Kingdom. Today Brightfilter released their extended 30 day trial of the Brightfilter Parental Control software.

Designed with parents in mind, the software provides a base-line level of access to all users, no matter who uses the PC. Age-related and customisable levels of web access can also be configured to provide tailor-made filtering to each and every family member. Customers wishing to run a 30 day trial click here.

 

Channel 4 Sex Education Show

 

31st March 2009 Bath, United Kingdom. Following the re-screening of Channel 4’s Sex Education show on Monday 30^th March 2009, Brightfilter have brought forward their announcement to extend the trial of our Brightfilter Parental Control software to 30 days – thereby providing the parent/administrator an extended time within which they can tailor suitable web filtering to meet their children’s needs. Brightfilter are also pleased to announce that a Brightfilter Lite Edition is currently being developed to provide a suitable level of web-content filtering free of change.

We believe that the development of these products will cater for every households needs whilst not compromising security, protection and the freedom to surf the web safely. We are delighted that Channel 4 have again highlighted this issue of pornographic content on the web and we support this raising of awareness amongst parents.

 

To view channel 4’s program please click here and choose the “Parents” video (4mins28)

Brightfilter Launch Partner Programme for Parental Control Software

27^th March 2009, Bath, United Kingdom.

Today, Brightfilter Limited launched a partner programme to enable businesses to resell the Brightfilter Parental Control subscription service to their customer base. The Parental Control software can be sold and used anywhere in the world. Pre-launch registered partners have already joined from the UK, Europe and the Far-East.

Enlisted partners will have the benefit to not only enjoy o margin on selling the product, but will also see renewal revenue year-on-year through the central management and control of subscriptions sold. Further detail along with additional information for interested partners can be found here

Brightfilter launch the latest version of Brightfilter Parental Control 2009

26th March 2009, Bath, United Kingdom.

Today Brightfilter Limited released its latest version of the Brightfilter Parental Control solution for parents. This latest release includes a more intuitive administration interface as well as a number of improvements to the look and feel of the software.

The service itself is powered by the most accurate web-filtering database available in the market today which uses a number of technologies and artificial intelligence techniques to gather and rate potential Web sites including: link crawlers, security forensics, honeypot networks, sophisticated auto-rating tools and customer logs. Candidate sites are added to the database after being reviewed by multi-lingual Web Analysts who focus their full attention on ensuring the continued quality of the database. Data is also included from organisations such as the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and the Anti-phishing Working Group (APWG).

The latest software release can be downloaded from here

Brightfilter at BETT 2009

23rd January 2009, Bath, United Kingdom

Brightfilter had a great stand in the Grand Hall at BETT and as well as meeting with hundreds of existing and potential customers managed to give away many thousands of stress balls!

Visitors were particularly interested in the new BoundaryServer appliance that enables schools to have the only truly effective web filtering solution as a low cost managed service.

Many vendors claim to protect against anonymous proxies but BoundaryServer is the only solution powered by McAfee Secure Web to absolutely control access including anonymisers via HTTPS.

To request your free evaluation of BoundaryServer please click here.

Brightfilter host Harmful Content on the Internet review @ ISPA AGM

ISPA held its annual Parliamentary Advisory Forum in Portcullis House on Monday 4th February on the pertinent issue of harmful content on the Internet. The event was hosted by Derek Wyatt MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Communications Group (apComms), and was well attended by Parliamentarians, Government officials, law enforcement representatives and leading figures from industry.

Peter Hodgson, founder and CEO Of Brightfilter, who spoke about the lack of controls and regulation on the Internet, in stark contrast to all other forms of media. Mr Hodgson argued that whilst child abuse images are illegal, he also believed that codes of practice could be introduced to combat forms of harmful online content. He did, however, state that he felt that the controlling a child's access to harmful content was the role of the parent and not the ISPs. He concluded by saying that solutions did exist to combat harmful online content, including parental responsibility and controls, but that ISPs also have a part to play.

 

The keynote address was delivered by Dr Tanya Byron, who is leading an independent inquiry into harmful content on the Internet and in video games. In her presentation, Dr Byron praised industry for engaging with the Review and revealed that more children and young people responded than all other respondents combined. She further identified some of the problems highlighted by the evidence that the Review team received, such as the lack of awareness amongst parents of online issues and a knowledge gap between parents and children in this area. Dr Byron explained that one method of addressing this was by engaging parents in a 'bottom-up' approach. She also suggested that clearer industry standards, empowering children and supporting parents were possible ways of improving the situation. Dr Byron's review will be published at the end of March.

Brightfilter shorlisted for IWF ISPA Award 2008

Nominations for this year's IWF ISPA Award are for any person, initiative, development, group or organisation which has most significantly contributed to combating illegal content on the internet during 2007.

 

The Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA UK) has been organising the UK Internet Industry Awards since 1999 to herald the best of the Internet industry and to celebrate innovation and best practice. One of the Special ISPA Awards is the Internet Watch Foundation Award.

 

Brightfilter have been nominated for our commitment to consumer e-safety by offering ISPs, free of charge, the opportunity to deploy the Brightfilter filtering solution to protect their customers from accidentally stumbling across indecent images of children.

ISPs offerred latest filtering software with Internet Watch Foundation protection included

As internet access continues to escalate, parents face a series of concerns about their children’s necessary access to the internet from home - for research, school projects and general leisure use. Whilst most schools employ network level filtering to protect pupils from unsuitable material online, many home PCs are not covered to the same extent, and do not deliver the same quality or control. This can be an additional problem in an era where children are frequently more computer literate - and familiar with the web - than their parents.

 

With this in mind, Bath-based web filtering company Brightfilter has launched a partnership project with all the UK’s major ISPs, offering them an opportunity to introduce parents to one of the most sophisticated, new generation filtering products on the market. Through the scheme, ISPs can offer free trials of the solution to their subscribers and choose whether to charge for the service or “bundle” it in with other service offerings.

 

According to Brightfilter Founder and CEO, Peter Hodgson,

"A recent survey by the London School of Economics found that while 57% of children have come into contact with pornography online, only 16% of parents are aware of this. Children are protected at school, but they may be lulled into a false sense of security when they get home. We want to educate parents to the fact that a real solution exists to tackle this problem. In addition, the Brightfilter solution blocks access to identified phishing and spyware sites which typically attempt to steal personal data, even credit card and bank details to commit serious fraud."

 

Although a few internet service providers do offer some protection in their more expensive monthly packages, these solutions typically require a bespoke browser, can be complicated to set up, and require specific email addresses for each family member for the filtering to work. Brightfilter’s creators believe their product is different. As Hodgson says,

"You can set up Brightfilter in a couple of minutes, it works with all browsers and ISPs and requires no technical know-how. Film censor classifications, U, PG, 12a, 15 and 18, are the default profiles so each child can be protected appropriately in seconds. Parents can choose unrestricted access for themselves, even on the same PC that the children use, and all users are protected from identified spyware and phishing sites."

 

Brightfilter’s database employs the URL blacklist maintained by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to ensure that illegal pornographic content involving children is never accessible - even inadvertently by adult surfers. Says Hodgson, "We already supply 10,000 schools in the UK with their network-level filtering solutions, and we believe ISPs are ideally placed to spread awareness to parents of the need and availability of high quality home filtering products such as Brightfilter."