School Internet use and Internet luring.

• Author: Haykowsky, Teresa
• Position: FEATURE on law and schools

School boards work hard to build safe and caring school communities. They play a significant role in maintaining a safe, nurturing, respectful, and positive learning environment for their students in accordance with the various provincial school acts, regulations, school board policies, and rules. In fulfilling this role, educators act in loco parent is (in the place of a parent) to students. School boards, administrators, and educators assess risk in the provision of meaningful educational experiences, and in making this assessment, they strive to act like a reasonable, careful, and prudent parent.

The Net Generation

Schools in Alberta provide Internet access to students so that they may take advantage of the benefits of Internet use for educational purposes. This means that children may access the Internet at school as well as at home. It also means, however, that children who are members of the Net Generation--who use computers, digital media, and the Internet with ease--may be exposed to risk.

School boards cannot ignore unsavoury Internet use. For example, children can be lured over the Internet for the purpose of committing sexual offences against them. This is a criminal offence.

In one such case, a 44-year-old man had sexually explicit conversations over the Internet with a person he believed to be a 13-year-old girl. In fact, the person was an undercover police officer. The accused arranged to meet the girl at a restaurant and there he was arrested. Following his guilty plea, the court imposed 12 months' imprisonment.

"Internet luring" has led to public debate, inside and outside schools. Most recently, after a 31-year-old Texas man was charged with luring a 14-year-old Canadian boy to a hotel room over the Internet, the question was revived whether the age for sexual consent in Canada should be raised from 14 to 16.

"Age of consent" means the age at which criminal law recognizes the legal capacity of a young person to consent to sexual activity. Since 1890, the age of consent in Canada has been 14 years. The age of consent is 18 years, however, where the sexual activity involves exploitative activity, for example, where there is a relationship of trust, authority, or dependency.

The Courts and Internet Luring

The courts have not shied away from imposing denunciatory and deterrent sentences, which include incarceration, regarding Internet luring:

"... child luring over the Internet requires strong denunciation because of the ease...