Networking websites that have attracted millions of young users are to come under scrutiny from anti-paedophile investigators, amid growing concerns that children are unwittingly providing material for potential abusers.

The British government-backed watchdog the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre said yesterday it had begun an inquiry into the sites after concern from teachers and parents.

They have become alarmed at how children are using sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and now bebo to display personal details and, in some cases, intimate photographs of themselves.

It is estimated that 61 per cent of British children aged 13 to 17 have a personal profile on a networking site, which enables a user to create their own homepage, exhibit photographs and socialize online.

Of the 8 million children in Britain with access to the Internet, one in 12 says they have gone on to meet someone whom they initially encountered online. Police say more than 50,000 sexual predators are thought to be online at any one time.

The latest site to come under scrutiny bebo.com organizes networks around school or college communities, and has attracted 25 million members since its launch 18 months ago. A minority of children, some as young as 13, have begun showing pictures of themselves in sexual poses, semi-naked or wearing lingerie.

One headteacher has called in police after discovering more than 700 of her students had signed up with bebo, and that some were displaying images she considered to be indecent. Linda Wybar, headteacher of Tunbridge Wells girls' grammar, also banned the site from her school and wrote to every parent about her concerns.

Two weeks ago a 21-year-old media student from Surrey became the first person to be convicted of child grooming offences after one of his victims reported his online advances to an internet policing unit, the Virtual Global Taskforce.

Lee Costi was arrested after arranging to meet a 14-year-old at a railway station for sex. By the time police intervened he had already enticed and had sex with two other girls, aged 13 and 14. He had met his victims in the chatroom of the website teenspot.com.

The Internet Watch Foundation, a self-regulatory body founded by the industry to encourage individuals to report illegal activity, confirmed that the watchdog has also received complaints about the sites.

"The issue tends to arise when children post an indecent image of themselves, unaware of the types of people who can look at them," said a spokeswoman.

Ahead of today's announcement by the Ceop, which was set up by the government two months ago, the head of the agency, Jim Gamble said: "We've got a specific interest in social networking sites simply because it is the new phenomenon, it is how young people are coming together and capitalising on a range of different technologies. Basically, they're inviting friends to be mem."

Source: China Daily