Why 'It's Good To Know'

Welcome to this new website, and to this new blog!

They both come as we launch the national ‘It’s Good To Know’ campaign - bringing the Friendly WiFi message to new venues and their service users. The campaign is ongoing, and carefully planned.

When we started it, one of the first questions was how to word the title: how to be simple and clear about what are and what we do in just a few words.

Friendly WiFi was created in partnership with the UK Government and exists in the public safety space. We have a duty to be straightforward about risks, but not to worry people unnecessarily.

In the end there were a range of powerful statements to choose from and we spent a lot of time exploring the strengths of each.

We chose ‘It’s Good To Know’ - rather than something perhaps more alarming - because we believe in essence Friendly WiFi is good news. When you see the Friendly WiFi symbol you know it’s safe, particularly for children.

That’s a good thing, and it would have been too much to make a meal of the dangers that are out there, lurking on the internet.

Partly, of course, because anyone who reads or watches the news knows about the dangers all too well. The problem, until Friendly WiFi was born, was how to know you’re safe from the risks. Now you do, and ‘It’s Good To Know’.

Industry partnership

But having knowledge of a danger doesn’t mean it stays still. Far from it. The Internet Watch Foundation updates our filter criteria twice every day to keep up with the threat.

Three years ago we were created in partnership with the leading WiFi providers. That ongoing relationship has put us in a strong position to help with the Government's mission to make the UK the world’s safest place to go online.

So ‘It’s Good To Know’ works on that level too. It’s good to know where is safe, and it’s good to know why.

Three years old

Three years ago the government realised citizens needed an easily-recognised symbol to establish when the WiFi they use in a public space - in a cafe, on a train, in a shopping centre - is free from inappropriate content.

Before Friendly WiFi was brought about there was no established symbol to prove when WiFi was filtered for pornography and webpages known to host indecent images of children.

And three years on we’re still the only such organisation anywhere in the world.

So expect to see us telling you “It’s Good To Know” a lot more in the coming months. Until we celebrate our fourth birthday, in fact!