Online bullying illustration. [Photo/huffingtonpost.co.uk]
The communication authority is planning to introduce a National Strategy for Child Online Protection policy in consultation with the International Telecommunication Union and other stakeholders.
The Director General, Francis Wangusi, stated that the move has been prompted by an alarming trend of abuse among children in the fast-growing technology economies.
The policy is expected to guide the telecommunication industry on child online safety procedures by June 2018. The measures should come into force when communicating with a second party using short messages or social media accounts and accessing the internet.
The authority has outlined crimes on the increase as pornography, solicitation of a minor, cyberbullying, online fraud and identity theft.
A recent research conducted in collaboration with the University of Hampshire by Guard Child shows that 70 percent of children aged 7 to 18 years have encountered online pornography accidentally through a web search while doing homework. As a result, 90 percent of children in this age bracket have seen online pornography more than once.
In Kenya, Internet subscriptions increased by 15.2 percent from 25.7 million registered in the previous quarter to 29.6 million as at June 2017.Mobile data subscriptions stood at 29.4 million at the end of the quarter marking a 15.3 percent increase.