Pinellas County has launched a free cyber safety initiative for parents to help prevent threats from online predators targeting their children.<\/p>\n
PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A new Pinellas County partnership aimed at protecting children from online predators<\/a> is being described as \u201chistoric,\u201d bringing together law enforcement, schools and child-welfare leaders to confront what they say is an escalating digital threat \u2014 and giving parents a free tool to help.<\/p>\n The Parent ProTech<\/a> program, announced Monday, will offer every parent and caregiver in Pinellas County a free, one-year, bilingual subscription to an online training platform that explains emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, and how predators exploit them.<\/p>\n During a press conference this morning, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office said they’re on track to investigate more than 100 child pornography just in the county alone by the end of the year.<\/p>\n Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said investigators frequently see cases escalate quickly. Experts also said children spend more time on their devices during school breaks, like those on the horizon over the next few weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n Risks particularly grow with children spending copious amounts of unsupervised time online, Gualtieri said.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce they view that child pornography, it builds from there, and they begin reaching out, contacting kids, grooming kids,\u201d Gualtieri said. \u201cThen they contact them. Before you know it, we have a really, really bad situation.\u201d<\/p>\n Pinellas County currently has about 1,800 registered sex predators and offenders, many of whom reoffend through online platforms. That reality has left parents frightened, Gualtieri said, especially as technology evolves faster than adults can keep up.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don’t know how Snapchat works and all these other things that these kids are like this, sitting in a restaurant on it talking about it,\u201d he said. \u201cSome of it is basic stuff like what are you doing and who are you talking to but the parents have no familiarity with the breadth, the scope of what’s out there and what these kids have access to. They need to know what it is before they know how to control it.\u201d<\/p>\n The new countywide subscription to Parent ProTech<\/a> will focus heavily on artificial intelligence \u2014 an area where educators say risks are climbing sharply.<\/p>\n \u201cStudents using A.I. Chatbots as emotional companions and relationship substitutes and the alarming rise across the nation where these tools have encouraged self-harm and advised children to hide things from their parents,\u201d Ashby Green, chief financial officer of Parent ProTech said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to educate without assuming an A.I. Chatbot can do all the things for us,\u201d Kevin Hendrick, the Pinellas County School Superintendent, added.<\/p>\n