Child Security in Cyberspace Through Moral Cognition

The increasing number of threats in cyberspace has meant that every internet user is at a greater risk than ever before. Children are no exception to this exploitation, incurring psychological and financial stress. Technology is on a persistent pursuit of offering exquisite solution to address the problems associated with children on the cyberspace. With every new product for parental control to secure children, comes a new technique to trespass the same. Consequently it summons an approach to look beyond technology; this paper aims to explore the relevance of moral cognition to decision making capability of children on the internet & the possibility of minimizing related risks using the observation. The authors establish a correlation between cognitive moral development and the cyber vulnerability level of children of age between 12 and 16 years, based on an empirical research using a comprehensive set of questionnaires and standard tests. The findings also paves path for future researchers to further analyze and implant features in the parental control software that would stimulate moral cognition, thereby redefining parental control software as parental care software.