Half of Europe's sub-teenagers have mobile phones

Anecdotally and from personal observation you already know it's true - but now there is now empiric research evidence from the European Commission (EC) to back up your prejudices/worries/disbelief. Yup, more than 50 per cent of European children under the age of 10 really do now have mobile phones - and that rises to 95 per cent for 16 year-olds and above, writes Martyn Warwick.

All those millions of little princes and princesses out there are having their phones provided and bills paid by indulgent parents who, at the same time are worried that their sprogs will use their mobiles to access to "inappropriate content". Well, of course they'll try, it's what kids do.

And, in point of fact the EC has put pressure on mobile operators headquartered in EU Member States to ensure that youngsters under the age of 18 can't gain access to porn or gambling sites through their handsets and operators in most EU countries last year signed-up to voluntary, self-policing agreements to control what they describe as "adult-oriented" material.

The trouble with voluntary, self-policing agreements is of course that they are voluntary and self-policing and new EU figures show that just 41 per cent of those network operators that agreed to the voluntary code are actually bothering to monitor and enforce it. Meanwhile four nations, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland and Luxembourg, haven't managed to get around to agreeing to introduce even a discretionary code - making it all the more likely that unless something is done soon the EC will move formally to regulate matters and introduce penalties for those carriers that transgress.

In some countries identity checks are made on those buying mobile phones (most of which, these days, are purchased by credit card) so any youngsters doing so will eventually be known to the authorities (although once they leave the premises with a handset they can do more or less what they like with it) but it is impossible to know when an adult buys a handset and signs the contract to pay the bills whether or not the phone is subsequently passed to a child or teenager.

And, truth to tell, owners of adult content or gambling websites actually don't want kids to access their content because, a) they could potentially be faced with an embarrassing court case and all the attendant bad press and b) landed with unpaid bills.

Of course, youngsters will always push the boundaries and try to get into places they shouldn't - be that bars, strip joints, gambling dens, porno movie houses or whatever other proscribed pleasure palace - and there is no reason why they should be any less determinedly curious about gaining entrance to their electronic equivalents in cyberspace.