Pokemon Go – A guide for parents & carers to keep children safe

As you will all be aware from the local and national news  there is a new game/app that can be downloaded directly to mobile phones  called Pokemon Go and works via a phone’s location service and sends you messages telling you where to go to “find” a Pokemon, which is a virtual creature. The user then has to physically go to the location shown to “collect” the Pokemon. It was launched in America and elsewhere a couple of weeks ago  and although it has not been officially launched in the UK yet there are many people who have managed to download it already.

There are concerns that the game could present dangers to younger children and other vulnerable people as there are ways for users to “lure” other users to certain areas  (you may have seen some reports in the news regarding this). In light of the forthcoming school  summer holidays can you all please remind children and vulnerable young people playing this game not to go anywhere alone as they may be placing themselves in a vulnerable situation. 

The NSPCC have now released a guide for parents to keep children safer whilst playing on the app. This can be found at https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/pokemon-go-parents-guide/