A K-12 Chromebook filter prevents students from accessing age-inappropriate web content, can be configured to prevent non-educational use of Chromebooks, protects student privacy, and blocks malware downloads. Unfiltered Chromebooks put children at considerable risk.
Chromebooks are a low-cost alternative to laptop computers. In contrast to laptops, Chromebooks do not use the Windows or macOS operating systems instead, they use ChromeOS, which works like the Chrome web browser and provides rapid Internet access. Chromebooks allow access to the Internet for reading web content, checking webmail, watching videos, and accessing web-hosted documents, spreadsheets, and photos. Since Chromebooks are low-cost and can be used to access educational resources they are ideal for students to support remote learning, and they have proven to be hugely popular with K-12 schools.
The problem with issuing students with Chromebooks is that while the devices support e-learning, they can also be used to access the entire web, which means students could use them to view age-inappropriate web content that can be very harmful to young minds. The devices can be used to share harmful images and videos and access chatrooms where children can be exposed to online predators. Since the devices have webcams, children could be tricked into sharing inappropriate images. Like standard laptops, Chromebooks can also be infected with malware, which can provide malicious actors with access to devices, including the webcam.
A K-12 Chromebook filter protects against these harmful uses by restricting access to Internet content and is an essential privacy and security feature for school-issued Chromebooks. In the United States, Chromebook filtering is a requirement of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), compliance with which is required to receive E-Rate discounts. CIPA requires an Internet safety policy and technology to be used to prevent minors from accessing sexually explicit or otherwise harmful Internet content.
WebTitan: A Low-Cost, Effective, and Easy-to-Use K-12 Chromebook Filter
TitanHQ has developed a K-12 Chromebook filter that is easy for administrators to implement and maintain and allows precision control of the web content that students can access on their school-issued Chromebooks. WebTitan is a cloud-based web filtering solution that can be configured to block web content by category or whitelist certain websites and web content to severely limit what students can do using their school-issued Chromebooks. WebTitan has been developed to allow learning anywhere, whether that is in the classroom or when the Internet is accessed from any Wi-Fi hotspot or router.
WebTitan On-the-Go for Chromebooks is a roaming agent that is used in combination with the WebTitan Cloud platform that will apply a school’s Internet policies no matter where the Chromebook is used to access the Internet. Through the agent, administrators can enforce filtering controls at the user or device level using a Google Workspace account and ensures that Chromebooks are locked down to prevent the filtering controls from being bypassed. The filters support YouTube for Schools, SafeSearch, and content controls can be set for different age groups or even individual users. WebTitan is also constantly updated with threat intelligence and monitors in real-time for malicious content and blocks malware threats.In addition to locking down the devices, administrators have full access to reports detailing web access down to the user level, and since filtering controls are applied per device, there is no need for slow and expensive VPNs or proxies.
If you want to protect students from inappropriate web content, protect their privacy, and keep Chromebooks secure, contact the TitanHQ team today. Product demonstrations can be arranged on request and WebTitan is available on a free trial to allow you to assess the product before you make a decision about a purchase.