Children as young as five would be taught about the dangers of putting their personal details on the internet under plans drawn up by the Conservatives to tackle cyber-crime.

Issues such as privacy, information security, and the risks posed by posting photographs online would all be addressed as part of the compulsory ICT curriculum, which is introduced at Key Stage 1, the Conservatives said.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, attacked the Government for not doing enough to raise awareness among children of the dangers posed by cyber-crime, at a time when the threat was growing and criminals were using increasingly sophisticated methods to target their victims.

“From e-mail to file-sharing, social networking to shopping, the internet is part of our lives. But we’re not the only ones to have migrated to this new communication platform,” Mr Davis told delegates at an e-crime conference in London.

“The internet is a shopping mall for criminals, and for many of us it’s in the home that cyber-crime strikes. These days our real valuables are the personal details that are measured in megabites, rather than our belongings.”

The Conservatives also proposed re-establishing a national police unit given over to cyber-crime — similar to the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit, now part of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), setting up a cyber-crime unit within the Crown Prosecution Service that would ensure better outcomes from cases brought against online criminals, and creating a national complaints centre for such offences.

Tony Neate, managing director of Get Safe Online campaign, applauded the measures, saying that ICT courses in schools too often focused on teaching students about documents and spreadsheets, but not important issues like security.

“Schools need to start introducing awareness of computer security and safety to every aspect of ICT training. Kids need to be learning about things like passwords and privacy when they are at primary school, because that’s the age when they start using social networking sites.”

Security experts also supported the move, saying that it would help when personal computers — particularly those that ran older software — did not have parental controls that allow owners to restrict sites to which the computer has access.

“The Government definitely needs to be doing more to educate kids, especially given that sites like Facebook are now starting to be targeted by paedophiles,” Alan Phillips, chief executive of 7Safe, a security firm, said.

Kevin Zuccato, commander of Hi-Tech Crime Operations with the Australian Federal Police, defended the Government, however, saying that it had one of the best reputations worldwide for dealing with cyber-crime, through the work of both SOCA and organisations such as the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

He agreed that more needed to be done to educate children at a young age, because despite being extremely familiar with using the internet, youngsters were often unaware that material they posted on the internet, such as photographs, stayed there permanently.

A Home Office spokesman said that the Government had allocated £29 million over three years to implement the recommendations of the recent Fraud Review, including creating a National Fraud Strategic Authority, which would provide “better prevention advice and alerts to fraud threats for businesses and the public”.

Some sites regularly visited by children, such as CBeebies, have begun to promote issues such as computer safety, and internet service providers work with law enforcement agencies to restrict access to sites hosting illegal content.

Computers that run Vista, the latest version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, now also enable owners to set controls so that children have restricted access to the internet.

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