These Guidelines have been taken from The Guide Association website (www.guides.org.uk) and Girlguiding Devon wholly supports them.

Guidelines for Members

Anyone designing her own pages, either for personal use or as a unit and who wishes to establish links with the Guide Association's site, should follow these guidelines:

• Individuals, both adults and girls, should not be identified and where it is essential to give a contact name, only the job title should be used.
  
• Pictures of named individuals should not be 'posted'.
  
• Information about meeting times and places should not be given, but should be made available only on request - to control the information that is given out.
  
• If camps and special events are being advertised, give enough detail to whet the appetite but not enough to alert anyone who might cause a nuisance. For example, for a big camp, give the County, month and year and the age range expected with a taster of the programme, plus an e-mail, fax or office address for further details.
  
• Activity ideas should only be ones which are permitted and any instructions must follow our safe practice rules, as set out in The Guiding Manual and The Guider Handbook.
  
• Activity ideas on any other WWW sites should be checked carefully before use - remember our usual safety rules still apply!

You should also follow these guidelines when entering your details into Guestbooks or similar sites on the web for your own safety and that of the girls.

When encouraging girls to access information from the World Wide Web:

• Ensure that their parents/carers are aware of what the girls are doing and have given permission.
  Give guidance about protecting the girls' identities as outlined in the general guidelines.
  
• Encourage them to check activity ideas with parents, Guiders or other adults to ensure that the ideas are practical and safe.
  
• Never encourage the girls to develop their Internet friends into face-to-face friendships without first obtaining parental consent. And never go alone to the first of any such meetings you choose to arrange for yourself.

This information is from an article published in Guiding magazine, April 1998. Revised in January 2001.
Brownie magazine in May 1998 carried a list of guidelines specially drawn up for our young members. Revised in March 2001.

Read the Brownie code for safety on the World Wide Web

Further information

Look at A Parent's Guide to the Internet on the NCH Action for Children site for more ideas.

You can make a report to the Internet Watch Foundation if you do see anything illegal posted on the Internet

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