About Koini

The original concept for online safety for kids, was promoted through the initiation of Anne's Diary
 
Anne's Diary was initially launched in 2006, as a secure children's website and social networking environment designed for girls ages 6 to 14. The user-friendly website was ??an innovative, fun and educational space in which girls could communicate with their peers and improves their creative writing and reading skills. 
 
Anne's Diary was the first website designed specifically for children which was first and foremost a secure environment, and developed with top notch security technology to prevent children from chatting with anyone whose identity has not been verified. We partnered with safety and security leaders Fujitsu, Novell and 123ID to cultivate a state-of-the-art biometric login system based on fingerprint recognition. This ground-breaking technology allowed us to limit access to the website, thereby ensuring the privacy and security of our registered members. 

Inspired by the much-loved "Anne of Green Gables" stories by L. M. Montgomery, the website encouraged users to explore their creativity and to communicate with their peers around the globe in an attractive, safe, virtual world. The cornerstone of the site was a personal interactive diary and scrapbook that walked children through their daily tasks with reminders, as well as providing them with a unique space in which to record their adventures and wishes. Alongside the diary sat a secure chat room and forum in which access was limited to members of the site, whose ages and identities had been verified and stored in our secure database.

Education was an important part of Anne's Diary. By encouraging children to develop their own diary, the site promoted a love of writing and creativity, enabling young people to keep a record of their ideas and adventures. Regular writing contests were available to provoke thought and discussion and hopefully inspired members to develop their writing skills and to communicate with their peers around the world. Anne's Diary contained a wealth of rich and innovative content, including interactive games, book clubs and competitions. A team of enthusiastic editors ensured that the site was always filled with interesting and valuable information to help young people to study, communicate and have fun.

The Internet has rapidly revolutionized our lives and has altered the way we live, work, conduct business, and communicate with others. This powerful technology offers us unprecedented access to worldwide information and instant communication but it has unfortunately opened up a new venue for sexual predators to seek out unsuspecting children, especially those who constantly use the internet on a daily basis.
The proliferation of social network sites on the Internet has been a phenomenon of our times. It is estimated that in total over 300 million people are members of MySpace, Facebook, Bebo or one of the many other sites providing social interaction.

While this phenomenon has provided an outlet for people from differing backgrounds and nationalities to come together and interact in a way never before imagined, it has also highlighted many issues of safety for the users. Safety issues such as 'phishing' where the user can have their identity stolen to users being 'cyber bullied' have all been reported in the media as the popularity of social networking sites continue to grow. The one area however, that is the most disturbing is the incidences of sexual predators using these sites to gather information, contact and 'groom' children for inappropriate online chat which sometimes graduate to actual physical abuse.

In an attempt to satisfy the changing demands of younger children, whose knowledge of the internet is growing and getting more sophisticated, we have updated our sites to give these young users all that Facebook offers and more. The Facebook boom has spread to the elementary-school set, with a half-dozen social networking web sites competing for a young audience between the ages of 6 to 13. While the trend offers valuable educational and play opportunities, it also exposes these children to the increasing danger of online predators.
We have also enhanced our enrolment and login procedure to eliminate the need for the purchase of expensive fingerprint readers while giving our members safe and immediate access to the Koini sites. The enrolment procedure is straight-forward and simple, providing our users the same protection as one would receive when logging on to an online bank, for instance. This technology is known as a Personal Verification Question (PVQ).
So what is a PVQ? Simply put, Koini requires users to enter personal verification questions about themselves when they first register for an account. When logging on, users are given a series of random questions that range from your favorite TV show to the name of your first school. The user is required to enter 3 different PVQ?s into the system so that whenever the user signs on to any of our websites, they will have to enter their password and correctly answer a randomly generated PVQs in order to be permitted to enter the site.

Zero Tolerance

Koini has a zero tolerance of all forms of bullying and violence. We are committed to making all Koini sites Safe-Sites. It is a basic entitlement or right for every member of our community to feel safe, be treated with respect and be protected within a caring environment. Serious breaches of these rights will not be tolerated. This policy statement supports the Koini Code of Conduct.

Code of Conduct

All members of the Koini community must:
Demonstrate honesty and integrity;
Respect differences in people, their ideas, and their opinions;
Treat one another with dignity and respect at all times, and especially when there is disagreement.
Respect and treat others fairly, regardless of, for example, race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, or disability;
Respect the rights of others;
Take appropriate measures to help other members that may need help.
Seek assistance from a member of the Koini team, if necessary, to resolve conflict peacefully;
Not swear or use offensive language to another member.

Koini's Promise

To develop a feeling of confidence and safety throughout our sites.
To provide a message that bullying and any other offensive material is taken seriously and be acted on immediately.
To foster an attitude of responsibility amongst members and our staff.
To establish links between Kioni, parents and our members.

Definition:

Bullying relates to the intimidation of another person through verbal, emotional, cyber (e.g. email / texting) or physical attack by an individual or group. It is a repeated, wilful, conscious desire to hurt another individual or place them under stress. Bullying behaviour may encompass name calling, teasing, punching, threats, extortion, exclusion, oral assault. (This may also be evident in the use of another language). Bullying is characterised by significant repetition of such behaviours. Unlike bullying, violence usually involves physical assault by an individual or group.

Parent Involvement:

Parent involvement is integral to supporting and maintaining a safe-on line community. This is particularly relevant when parents are involved in the direction and approval of the sites and activities that they feel appropriate. Parents are expected to endorse and uphold Koini's values at all times.

Partners:

The Koini, Anne's Diary, Toms Scrap Book and What's Sup Kids web sites, are registered with Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP). The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre is dedicated to eradicating the sexual abuse and online abuse of children. That means we are part of UK and international policing and very much about tracking and bringing offenders to account either directly or in partnership with local and international forces.

Sadly many children have been confronted with material that is disturbing or inappropriate, there are too many cases where children have been victimized by serious crime as a result of going online. Koinis mission is to take steps to help parents shield their children from such material. Parents can greatly minimize the chances that their children will be victimized by installing the Koini browser, a very easy installation.