Parents and their children may benefit from an E-learning course to teach them about internet safety

Parents are responsible for making sure their children use the internet safely.

This is the view of Richard Harris, director of 7Safe, who said sometimes monitoring sites and automatically blocking others is not always the best option.

Mums and dads could enrol themselves and their kids onto an E-learning course so they can learn about the risks association with the web, as the expert claimed parents need to be educated too.

"Unless you are a fairly clued up IT professional then you are perhaps not going to be able to make the technical controls that would prevent them from going to sites you don't want them to see," Mr Harris added.

Parents must keep an eye on what portals their offspring go on, as children like to "test the boundaries", he remarked.

His comments follow reports internet pornography could soon be automatically blocked on home internet connections in the UK, so kids can not access pornographic materials.

The government has revealed it will hold a roundtable debate on the issue.