Eagle-eyed baristas ensure South East England’s Costa franchise signs up to ‘safe WiFi’ pledge

THE UK’s largest Costa Coffee franchise has been awarded a government-recognised

certification that proves its network is filtered for “adult content” - after eagle-eyed staff

spotted a hike in the number of young people using smartphones in-store.

Goldex Investments, which runs 65 coffee shops across Essex, Kent, Surrey and Sussex,

signed up to Friendly WiFi to reassure the community their WiFi provider, Freerunner, had

the right filtering in place.

Jade Colfer-Coleman, new stores manager for Goldex Investments, said: “Although we take

pride in the fact our WiFi always had the right filters, when our managers told us more

schoolchildren were using their smartphones in-store, the decision to become Friendly WiFi

approved was the obvious next step.

“We have a lot of families using our cafes in the communities we serve. Our first concern

was to reassure them that the WiFi their children were using was safe.

“Our customers love using our free WiFi, and now they can do that safe in the knowledge

inappropriate content is blocked.”

Where the Friendly WiFi symbol is displayed the WiFi is filtered for pornography, images of

child abuse or links to such material.

WiFi provider Freerunner’s managing director Chris Kent said: “We’re delighted to support

Goldex in bringing this accreditation further into the high street, and hope one day it

becomes the standard and benchmark for public WiFi.”

Friendly WiFi director Bev Smith said: “Goldex is one of the UK’s leading Costa franchises

so it’s brilliant to see them ensuring their entire community knows that their young people

can enjoy safe and filtered WiFi.”