Daily Telegraph: New complaints service with teeth to help victims of cyber bullying

Schools are hiring private investigators to hunt down cyber bullies who torment classmates online, driving some to the brink of suicide.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal a number of Sydney schools are hiring data tracking experts to identify the social media posts of school bullies who hide behind fake identities.

When tracked down, the bullies may be confronted by school principals with ­evidence of their activities and ordered to stop their online ­attacks or face expulsion and, potentially, prosecution.

The KPMG-owned social media intelligence company SR7 said it had helped a number of independent schools identify cyber bullies and that at least one was receiving ­ongoing assistance.

“We can demonstrate what has taken place in the public domain, provide a report and the school can then decide what it wants to do,” KPMG/SR7 director James Griffin said.

“Fake profiles are a standard operating procedure in bullying — finding out who did it is the difficult part.”

Data collected by the NSW Education Department shows public schools are reporting hundreds of incidents of cyber bullying every term including sexting, indecent images and threatening messages, with even teachers becoming targets.

Government schools are reporting more than 400 serious incident reports a term — about 40 a week — of which around 10 per cent involve cyber bullying, sexting or ­misuse of the internet.

Federal parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher said an alarming number of the ­attacks were targeted at children as young as eight, too often with tragic consequences.

“Research commissioned by the federal government found one in five young people aged eight to 17 has been ­exposed (to cyber attacks) over a 12-month period,” he said.

“I have met parents of teenagers who have committed suicide because of cyber bullying.

“Victims feel they have been ridiculed and humiliated in public — they want harmful material taken down.”

It comes as federal government’s e-Safety Commissioner Alistair MacGibbon is set to launch a complaints service for victims. From next month the commissioner will have the power to fine social media companies up to $17,000 a day if they fail to remove harmful material from their sites.

MLC School at Burwood in Sydney’s West earlier this year called in cyber safety expert and former police officer Susan McLean to talk to parents and students about the dangers of misusing social media.

“It is important we give parents the tools to keep up with what children are doing online,’’ principal Denice Scala said.