Wangle Technologies Limited (ASX:WGL) is right on target for the initial release of its unique family protection software suite, Wangle Family Insites (WFI).
The company has recently put WFI through a significant Beta testing campaign and submitted the software to Apple for iOS submission in preparation for a product launch commencing the week of 23rd October on both iOS and Android platforms.
For the Wangle Technologies team including Wangle Technologies’ Managing Director and CEO Sean Smith, Head of Education Robyn Treyvaud and Director Donna Cross, this has been an exciting and important time in the fine tuning of what they see as a critically important application for any family with children who have internet access.
They truly believe that their Wangle Family Insites is a step-change in family protection software and through working with key community groups they are bringing something to the market that is very different to what has come before.
According to Sean Smith, Wangle Family Insites offers parents a unique approach to ensuring safer use of the internet by children and teenagers.
“By utilising Wangle’s secure, accelerated VPN network, Wangle Family Insites is able to monitor internet usage behaviours in real time and advise parents of potential threats.
It then provides parents with greater detail and educational resources on the threats identified, in an approach backed by evidence from the Telethon Kids Institutes cyber safety research,” Mr Smith said.
To date most family systems have relied on blocking or spyware software to either restrict their children from accessing ‘inappropriate’ content, or by reading their posted content.
But Wangle believes both have major faults, by giving parents a false sense of security whilst simultaneously alienating their children.
“Children’s cyber safety researchers have found that using either blockers or spyware erodes the parent-child trust required to help families safely navigate the both internet and the world in general,” Mr Smith said.
“Children need to be taught how to use the internet more safely whilst maintaining trust with their parents so they can work through issues together as the arise. We shouldn’t create a parents versus children situation, or children may find ways to access the internet behind their parents’ back. And more critically, won’t feel comfortable talking to their parents about other things they experience when online that may be missed by blocking systems.”
The team at Wangle worked closely with Telethon Kids Institute and other experts in the field to collate and curate detailed information from researchers, government advisory bodies and educators.
“We explored the cyber safety community for relevant resources, tools and services, so that we could provide parents with more detail on what identified threats might mean, what addressing these issues might involve, and who to turn to for help when they needed it.
Together, we give families the tools and knowledge to work together on online safety,” Mr Smith says.
The WFI method combines Telethon Kids Institute research analysing children’s and adolescent’s behaviours, with analysis of internet and GPS data passing through Wangle’s own accelerated VPN network.
WFI then analyses children’s online metadata in real time to look for emerging threats, informs parents when threats are identified, and helps families work together to use the internet more safely.
“It’s an approach that looks at behaviours, rather than reading content, giving children a fairer balance between privacy and safety.”
After its launch the WFI product will be available via Apple and Android App stores for a monthly family subscription and the company will initially target Australia’s 6 million families before a planned international expansion.
“This is a world-wide issue affecting billions of families,” Mr Smith says.