This article explains how Safeguarding Alerts work and links to further details to help you set them up effectively.
What are Safeguarding Alerts?
Smoothwall’s Safeguarding Alerts functionality tracks and reports all concerning web access attempts so your specified contacts or Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) can review and take action. Safeguarding Alerts consist of three components:
- Instant Safeguarding Alerts: Smoothwall sends these alerts by email (for either platform) or SMS (for On-Premise Appliance only) so you can act immediately.
- Scheduled Safeguarding Alerts: Smoothwall sends daily or weekly summaries by email from either platform, or monthly from the On-Premise Appliance. These summaries show what content users tried to access.
- Reports: Overviews of the content users have attempted to access.
Safeguarding Alerting happens independently of filtering. For example, a student may not be blocked by Smoothwall Filter from accessing content on overcoming drug addiction. However, viewing this content may generate a Safeguarding Alert to be sent to the DSL for Substance abuse.
You should examine the alerts and reports to determine their context and whether further action is needed. See What to do after getting a Safeguarding Alert.
Should we use Safeguarding Alerts?
In the UK, schools are required to comply with Filtering and monitoring standards for schools and colleges, and Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) policies. These include monitoring the types of content students are accessing and responding when there is a safeguarding risk.
- To be fully compliant, you must use Safeguarding Alerts in conjunction with other products that track App usage.
- One option is to use Smoothwall Monitor, which tracks activity across all Apps and examines keystrokes to help determine intent, rather than just web requests. Monitor’s dedicated human Moderator Team reviews the activity, identifies important events, and sends alerts to your DSL only when needed.
FAQ
- What are Safeguarding Themes?
- What is Safeguarding Severity?
- What content flags as a breach in Safeguarding Reports?
- When are Safeguarding Alerts sent?
- Who are Safeguarding Alerts sent to?
- How do I set up Safeguarding Alerts?
Example Safeguarding Alert emails
Note
You can’t edit the subject line, text or design of these emails.
Cloud Filter
Image 1: An example Instant Safeguarding Alert from Cloud Filter.
For Scheduled Safeguarding Alerts from Cloud Filter:
- Additional occurrences with the same user, website, and theme are listed with a number, making the email shorter and easier to read.
- Events are shown for setups in all regions in GMT, or GMT +1 during British Summer Time (BST).
Image 2: An example Scheduled Safeguarding Alert from Cloud Filter.
On-Premise Appliance
Instant Safeguarding Alerts
The appearance of Instant Safeguarding Alerts depends on whether you manage Instant Safeguarding Alerts from Cloud Filter.
Image 3: An example Instant Safeguarding Alert from On-Premise Appliance.
Image 4: An example Instant Scheduled Safeguarding Alert from On-Premise Appliance, when you manage Instant Safeguarding Alerts from Cloud Filter.
Scheduled Safeguarding Alerts
Weekly and Monthly Scheduled Safeguarding Alerts generated from On-Premise Appliance:
- Don’t include URLs to prevent them from being too large.
- Are still sent when there is no user activity, but won’t show any data.
Image 5: An example Daily Scheduled Safeguarding Alert from On-Premise Appliance.
Image 6: An example Monthly Scheduled Safeguarding Alert from On-Premise Appliance.