The BBC ID system is already being used on numerous BBC services aimed at 'grown-ups' like message boards, BBC iPlayer and Lab UK - wherever a sign in is required.

But migrating existing Children's services presented its own problems and a fair bit of head-scratching in the last few months.

With over 12 large scale games and activities (aimed specifically at 6-12s) already using the old SSO sign in system, the CBBC site represented the largest number of active SSO users in the BBC.

So it wasn't as simple as just turning on one system and pulling the plug on the other.

From audience feedback we know some of users have invested weeks, months and often years playing these games, nurturing their Roar safari parks, building up reputations and contributing UGC. It would be a hard man who would turn round and say all of that was for nothing. But more importantly we wouldn't want their enduring memory of BBC online services, during their most formative years, to be a sense that we just didn't care.

So the team had a double challenge to ensure that the data our users have amassed within their SSO accounts eg game points scored, saved submissions or progress within games would be follow with them to the new system whilst also protecting their safety.

Big challenge 1: Keeping user data

As SSO for CBBC did not require an email address to be provided during registration it was commonplace for users to open different accounts for each game or activity. The styling on individual games also seemed to confuse people that one sign in did not fit all. At one time we estimated there were 3 million active accounts amongst a potential available audience of just 4.2 million children.

By contrast the 'adult' full-fat BBC iD sign up requires users to provide an email address and limits users to one account per email address.

This gave us an important decision to make - do we ask users to select just one of their accounts and to resign themselves to losing all other accounts and the data saved against these accounts? Or do we allow users to transfer the data from all their accounts into their one new BBC iD account?

As recognition of the loyalty and commitment of our users, we decided to create a system by which they could keep their accounts.

A 'transfer' or 'coalescence' tool was built and users are passed through this (ably guided by a one-eyed bunny character) as part of the registration process. CBBC is unique within the BBC in offering this coalescence.

Challenge 2: Safety

As always safety of our users is paramount and, as such, with the launch of BBC iD, we have also taken the opportunity to add another layer of safety by introducing a Display Name Generator.

Whereas adults signing up to BBC iD can use any username they like and repeatedly change their display name through their account settings, this feature would create a major undertaking for CBBC in terms of additional moderation. Profanity filters can be used to ensure offensive screen names are excluded but we have an extra duty of care to guarantee kids don't inadvertently reveal their identities to all and sundry.

Consider an innocuous screen-name like MarcW127RJ. With a first name and postcode information like this, that child could be easily identified. (The astute among you will have worked out that's my work address).

So to help CBBC users keep themselves safe when signing up we also ask them to create a unique Display Name from a pre-filled word generator of random colours, adjectives and nouns. Expect to see a RedFieryLobster or ChocolatePancakeDude appearing on the messageboards anyday now.

Inevitably, some long-term regular users have objected to having the previous naming freedom restricted but when delved deeper we discovered most of these had actually outgrown our age band. And the children we've met in user testing seem to appreciate the safety benefits this system brings.

And it appears that our worst fears that children could just get confused by the whole process have been confounded.

In the first 10 days of offering the chance to coalesce data we have had over 45,000 users visiting the transfer tool and close to 72,000 users visiting the Display Name Generator (both old and new).

Any thoughts on how we can improve the process would be gratefully appreciated.

Yours SaphireSingingSamba.

Marc Goodchild is Head of Interactive and On Demand, BBC Children's.

Take a quick glance at Ofcom's 'interim' research on children's use of internet in the UK (published a couple of weeks ago) and you realise how timely this is. Children are spending more and more of their allotted screen-time online, both supervised and unsupervised. Fortunately CBBC is amongst their most popular children's websites already, but in recent years we've seen massive growth in the 'other' sites they're visiting. And the reality is not all of these are appropriate for younger children.

As usual, it generated a number of newspaper headlines about how young children are being let loose in the wild west of the world wide web but as ever, the knee-jerk reaction seems to be 'ban the internet' altogether.

Apart from being completely impractical, it overlooks the huge positive benefits that children can gain using online resources. And in a society where we adults increasingly rely on being connected in our working and social lives, it's not only hypocritical but also wreckless to deny children access to the support and tools they need to become the "netizens" of tomorrow.

To use a real world analogy, you wouldn't refuse to take your child to the swimming pool until they're 16 and then expect them to sink or swim on their first poolside holiday alone.

At CBBC we believe the solution has to be more practical. Our ambition is to create a safe online environment where children can have fun, laugh out loud, satisfy their curiosity for the world, be creative and at the same time develop all those essential internet skills.

I would argue this is more important now than ever before. In a world where TV viewing is becoming ever-more fragmented, particularly in the Multichannel Kids' TV space, it's inevitable that children are gravitating to the connectivity the web offers to have new types of shared experience with their friends.

As Ofcom research shows, growing numbers of 10s, 11s and 12s are being drawn to social networking sites - which, by their own terms and conditions are often not designed for this younger audience.

Under 13s are increasingly discovering these through their siblings, the almost-daily coverage in the media and probably parents like us who have embraced the new social opportunities these sites have to offer.

Rather than pretend this phenomenon doesn't touch children, we believe they should be offered alternative ways to connect and interact with their friends online that are designed around their needs and don't jeopardise their safety.

Everything we do is built around the 3Cs: Safer content, contact and conduct all built by design rather than leaving it to chance.

Content should be age appropriate, but also reflect the needs of children growing up in Britain today. Nielsen's top 100 sites visited by UK children is dominated by non-children's sites and US "kids'" brands. The CBBC website stands out as a place for British children to hear and see other young people like them and share in our unique British entertainment brands.

Preventing inappropriate contact is also a fundamental principle of our online service. All free text is pre-moderated - personally checked by human beings before it get's posted - so children don't inadvertently reveal personal details that allow them to be identified. We insist they use nick-names in profiles rather than email addresses (as these invariably read first name dot surname). We also pre-check all UGC (user generated content) that goes on our site.

However, these human checks and balances can interrupt real-time activities so we're also looking closely at more immediate methods of non-verbal communication that allow children to interact instantaneously without divulging sensitive personal information.

The last C is for responsible conduct. Whilst adults usually cite predation or strong content as their biggest issue for young internet surfers, children tend to be more concerned by cyber-bullying online or via mobile phones. So at CBBC we also try to encourage respect and a sense of decent civil behaviour on our message boards and other services like Bugbears.

I think it's obvious we strive to be the gold-standard in safety for children. But this can be a double edged sword. The last thing we want is for parents to think their children are safe at CBBC and absolve themselves from paying an active interest in what their little darlings are up to online. They need to engage in how the web is being used at home and provide support, explanation and house rules about what is acceptable.

CBBC is currently one of the most loved online brands amongst 6-12s in the UK. In the months ahead we want to build on that reputation, by maintaining our safe credentials but also working hard to ensure we remain relevant to world in which they inhabit.

The work we've just kicked off at CBBC is all about giving children the opportunity to find and connect with the brands and activities they love and also have fun online. We want to carry through all those great values that children already associate with our CBBC TV programming to provide great online entertainment with a British twist.

And we want to combine that with the best functionality. Great technology works at its best when it makes our lives easier and simpler and CBBC aims to take the pain out of the web for this younger audience who have some very particular needs. Young children who are still coming to terms with the letters in the alphabet can be completely flummoxed by the QWERTY keyboard. Some struggle with scrolling, others are only attracted to bright visual imagery. We need to understand all these needs and build that into our navigation and designs.

We're also working on new ways for them to discover content and navigate around it, and share both our "stuff" and their own in safe ways. We want to help them extend their playground friendships into the virtual spaces so they can have the equivalent of the adult water cooler moment and at the same time inspire them to be more active in the real world.

It's a fallacy that busy online children are automatically more sedentary. What we've discovered is that actively engaged and creatively inspired web users tend to replicate those behaviours offline too. So they deserve environments and services that stimulate and challenge them, provide moments of laughter and opportunities to escape or chill-out, and crucially, destinations that cater to what it means to be a child growing up in Britain today.

In short our ambition in the year ahead is to put the younger audience first and create an online service that most adults would be envious of.

Marc Goodchild is Head of Interactive and On Demand, BBC Childrens.

But that illustrates why the latest BBC iPlayer release for Cbeebies (which went live today) needed such a different visual treatment.

Cbeebies is one of the BBC's most loved brands - hugely appreciated by parents, but often overlooked by those without children. It's target audience is the under sixes (from preschoolers up to early primary ages) and the main website is designed to work as both a dual experience (for parents with toddlers to play on together) and a solo activity for the older children as they become more web literate.

That in itself is quite a complex user profile but the added complication is that you can't assume the same level of literacy as you do on adult sites.

So we've been working with the iPlayer team to come up with a walled garden version of the BBC iplayer that children can navigate without resorting to too much text based navigation.

The BBC's been making websites for children for over 10 years now and we've built a good body of knowledge about what constitutes best practice regarding usability for this age group. Young children are generally drawn by strong colours, they have an amazing ability to spot and recall individual programmes characters, and they are generally very good mimics. Once they identify an icon or user path they'll repeat it ad nauseam directing their grown-up by pointing to the screen or navigating themselves.

Image by danie;'s on flickr

Mouse control is often quite hard (not least because most peripherals aren't designed for small hands) so bigger buttons are essential. And text, even amongst the advanced children, tends to be overlooked whenever we do eye-tracking tests.

So the build of the Cbeebies iPlayer has had to incorporate all these best practice design features. In our tests, children and parents really like it.

Now there are some who will question why our children need access to yet more television. But this is not designed as a baby-sitting service - it's primarily a tool for parents and carers to have MORE control of their children's viewing NOT less.

We've intentionally targetted all the promotional links to the player at adults not children. And our research shows what parents and carers want more than anything is the ability to timeshift those favourite shows.

Our TV output on the Cbeebies channel is scheduled across the day with family routines in mind, but it can never be guaranteed to fit it with every household's hectic requirements. The Cbeebies Iplayer allows the grown-ups in the house to set the viewing timetable and better still, dictate what shows get shown.

So when there's the inevitable temper tantrum, you've always got the option to offer the ankle-biters "Time-out" with their favourite show. Other parents will just want to plan their children's screen time so it's not just a case of watching what happens to be on the box.

At Cbeebies we're not in the business of telling carers how they should bring up their kids or what the correct parenting approach should be in such situations, but we do know parents do value Cbeebies programming as educational and informative complement to the other activities their kids enjoy.

So the Cbeebies iplayer is designed to allow adults to set viewing patterns on their terms whilst the child-friendly interface both protects against any inadvertant selection of non-children's content (when their attention is distracted). Hopefully it will encourage more shared viewing and interaction around the shows the children appreciate most.

Marc Goodchild is Head of Interactive and On Demand, BBC Childrens

But why this alternative look player just for CBBC?

Well, although the BBC iPlayer has been carrying children's shows since the beginning (with quite significant take up) we've intentionally been cautious about promoting the service directly to children during this first year of the service.

If you take a look at the main BBC iPlayer homepage which is designed to showcase the full range of BBC programme content, you can guess some of the potential pitfalls.

One of the downsides of must-have web 2.0 features, like "most popular", is that you can't always ensure what shows will rise to the surface. (One week it could be Dr Who but the next it's Little Britain).

Therefore, it's impossible to guarantee that the collective viewing preferences of the older BBC iPlayer fan base will always be suitable for the 6-12 year olds CBBC serves. But neither should we compromise the service for the vast number of adults who increasingly use BBC iPlayer to catch up on their favourite shows.

So instead we've focused on coming up with a bespoke version of the BBC iPlayer just for children.

At this stage, it's important to point out that post-watershed shows like Little Britain already carry Guidance labelling and a Parental Guidance Lock option.

(In fact, the BBC has been a trailblazer amongst the UK terrestrial broadcasters in developing digital methods for signalling when post-watershed TV shows appear online and parents are given the option to set a password protection accordingly. It's an approach that has now been adopted elsewhere and is well supported by the likes of Ofcom, ATVOD and the BSG).

But as Dr Byron reported in her review of children's online safety for the Prime Minister earlier this year, not all parents are completely au fait with what is now possible online and some are oblivious to the benefits of using these safety features.

Whilst it isn't our role at CBBC to intervene in those parental decisions, we do have a duty of care for any child who comes to our site - whether or not their parents are actively involved in what they're consuming.

And from the child's point of view, being encouraged to visit a site where a lot of the "must see" content is out of bounds must feel a bit like going to a digital sweetshop where all the prize candy is visible on the top shelf but just out of reach.

Our solution has been to take a more carrot than stick approach with the new player, with the added incentive that this version is tailored specifically with children in mind.

As of today, we can now direct the CBBC audience to a semi-ring fenced area of BBC iPlayer which shows all their favourite programmes in a specialised interface, without them inadvertently tripping over less suitable content.

We're not actively encouraging children to navigate from CBBC version to the main BBC iPlayer site itself (just as we avoid promoting BBC3 shows on the CBBC channel) but we do want them to enjoy the compelling CBBC content the BBC iPlayer has on offer in a space specifically designed for that age group - with all the best functionality and features the mother brand has to offer.

The "look and feel" is also designed specifically to speak directly to children and dissipate any desire to navigate off piste.

And the overriding response of our user testing with 6-12 year olds backs this up. More than anything, they want safe familiar environments where they can get more of what they like when they want it - without the distractions of grown-up content that they either don't like or is blocked to them.

By customising the designs around their specific needs (with navigation that is more visual than text driven, buttons that are more playful and with new cross-linking across CBBC to other areas like games etc) we hope that this semi-walled garden proposition feels 'optimised' to what kids want rather than a restricted sub-set.

For any new parents who discover this version of BBC iPlayer through their children, we've also added extra notes explaining how to get the most from those all-important Parental Guidance lock features.

Anyone who claims that they can police what children do online with absolute certainty is probably misguided, but we believe that through a combination of increased parental involvement, 'user-centred' solutions like this and good media literacy in schools, children will generally take the sensible option and gravitate to the sites that put their needs first.

As they grow-up, some children will inevitably test these boundaries and find clever ways to subvert the system. That's not a symptom of the technology itself but an age-old dilemma about how much we should intervene when children decide to push the limits of what's allowed.

That point tends to come later as children hit secondary school and, as parents, we tend to be more confident about how to deal with such matters in both the real and virtual worlds.

So the crucial thing for us today at CBBC, and one of the primary aims of the new player, is to make sure that when the younger users amongst our audience go online, they aren't confronted or inadvertently trip over content that isn't age-appropriate, when they're least expecting it and before they're genuinely ready.

Marc Goodchild is Head of Interactive and On Demand, BBC Childrens.

myCBBC still manages to divide opinion. It's designed to provide younger children an alternative environment to express their personalities online and share in their favourite brands, without necessarily going on to more intimidating unregulated social networking sites.

There are those who believe that the very fact we're offering such a service means we're actually encouraging kids to embrace social networking before they're actually mature enough to understand the risks.

On the other hand, many argue that the cat's already out of the bag, and that the allure of unregulated social networking sites is far to great to ignore. You can guess where I stand, and recent Ofcom stats suggest that more than a quarter of children aged 8-11 who are online have a social networking profile, whether we like it or not.

We genuinely hope that myCBBC can provide a safe alternative for kids hungry for a taste of the web 2.0 network experience that they keep hearing about everyday from siblings, in the playground, on TV and in the press. Social networking is touted everywhere and children want a piece of the action - so we've come up with a secure environment where we can make sure that children pick up good tips on how to stay anonymous and safe.

But that raises another dilemma which we've been trying to grapple with at CBBC. If we want to be truly web 2.0, we surely can't restrict the share functionality to just BBC assets. Kids, more than anyone, are driven by their favourite brands and make little distinction between channels or websites except as a method to find their chosen programmes, characters or presenters.

So it feels rather anachronistic to suggest they shouldn't be able to aggregate all their fan-trophies (pictures, wallpapers, gossip etc) in one place. Surely if you're a fan of both Blue Peter and High School Musical, both posters should be available for you decorate your virtual den?

Most broadcasters struggle with the notion of embracing competitor brands on their websites - but for us, the issue is more about how to moderate all this stuff rather than fending off the competition.

If we didn't have an obligation to protect kids from inappropriate material finding its way onto our site, we could theoretically allow children to import whatever images they like.

But then we also open up a thorny rights issue. As a broadcaster/web publisher we have to be far more rigorous about what we allow on our sites than most aggregator services. And yet the costs of moderating make it impossible to pre-check the content or rights situation for every image a child might submit.

So the philosophical questions remain:

• should broadcasters like the BBC allow users to collate other material alongside BBC assets?
• and if so, how do we technically guarantee that content is appropriate for younger users and doesn't cross the line with third party rights agreements?

All suggestions welcome.

Marc Goodchild is Head of Interactive & On Demand, BBC Children.

Like many organisations delivering interactive content to children via the internet, the BBC was asked to submit evidence to the review. As you'll see if you read the submission (which you can view as a pdf document here), we probably go further than most to ensure that children's safety is paramount at all times.

For the BBC Children's department, where I work, the review is particularly pertinent.

We have two digital brands (that mirror our television channel output). CBeebies is aimed at under 6s (and is used primarily with parents at the helm or standing close by). CBBC targets the more internet savvy 6-12s and is more of an adult-free zone (but one that parents can trust).

So first of all, we'd like acknowledge Dr Byron for her considered response about the societal and personal benefits interactive media, and the internet in particular, can deliver to our audience.

If many of the tabloids are to be believed, the internet is an inherently evil medium that should be strictly off limits for underage users. Others amongst the technorati think that democratising nature of the web is its greatest characteristic and it should be up to parents alone, not organisations like the BBC, to vet or restrict what their children can access. [Photo above courtesy of Andrew Stawarz on Flickr]

But like Dr Byron, we probably sit somewhere in between these polarised extremes.

Yes, there is a lot of inappropriate content out there on the millions of unregulated sites across the internet. Not for nothing has it been termed the Wild West where anything goes. But we don't agree that we should therefore "turn off" the internet for anyone yet to reach legal maturity.

And to assume that parents can monitor every click in an always-accessible, on-demand environment that transcends timezones and has no "watershed" simply ignores the reality of how technology has shaped modern behaviour, not just for us but for our kids as well.

At Children's BBC, we believe the solution has to be to offer safe and reliable alternative online destinations that parents can trust and children can explore without fear of being confronted by inappropriate content or being subjected to bullying or unsolicited approaches by strangers (of whatever age).

In fact, it's core to the BBC's public service principles to help develop the citizens of tomorrow.

We should provide compelling interactive content that challenges our younger audiences, encourages them be respectful online, develops their internet confidence, provides an outlet to express themselves creatively and, above all, teaches them to realise and manage the risks of surfing the wider web.

In a recent talk about the review process, Dr Byron mentioned protecting kids against the 3 "C"s: inappropriate content, contact and conduct. It's a good framework and something we take very seriously.

At CBBC we have the 10 "E"s:

1) Engage the kids in the digital world they already inhabit - Don't deny that they're already digital natives and they will look to unregulated sites if we don't offer a public service alternative.

2) Embrace the fact that the virtual landscape is an extension of their playground activities, not a sinister "other life". As most kids geographical footprints diminish, the need to share virtual experiences will grow.

3) Excite them with thrilling, surprising, immersive and informative propositions tailored specifically to them that negates the need to go to more adult unregulated sites.

4) Entertain them with high quality indigenous content that makes them smile and reflects what it means to be a kid growing up in Britain today.

5) Empower them to express or explore their own personalities and creativity through online applications and challenges.

6) Encourage them to develop their social skills communicating and collaborating with other children in safe, anonymous environments.

7) Enable them to improve their digital competencies with media literacy initiatives tutorials and online tools specifically tailored to their abilities and requirements.

8) Ensure that they are sufficiently protected at all times from in inappropriate contact, unwarranted approaches or bullying behaviour.

9) Enlist them as advocates and trust them as users with rewards and privileges, peer recommendations and ratings and trusted user status for sustained "good behaviour".

And finally:

10) Equip them with the skills to evaluate risks and dangers when they do graduate to the more adult sites across the wider unregulated web.

We do believe parents have a role to play in all this, and Dr Byron is absolutely right that the fear many adults express about what their kids are up to online is a reflection of their own poor internet confidence. We therefore welcome any moves to provide better education for the "digital migrants" to support their digitally native children.

This should be about encouraging a dialogue with our children and setting boundaries that build on individual responsibility rather than trying to prevent exposure to anything might possibly be dangerous.

Molly-coddling them on the web is like saying they can never go to the park to meet their friends without a chaperone. Ignoring the fact that they'll probably do it anyway when you're not around, you also deny them skills to navigate the dangerous crossings when they do come of age.

A better approach is to coach them about the dangers and let them take on more responsibility little by little.

For our part, we want to enter into a new contract with parents that says we'll help set your kids on their way in a trusted and safe environment. Such "contracts" aren't new in broadcasting" the "watershed" has been around for decades and is a shorthand way of telling parents that anything before 9pm should be suitable for family viewing.

As technology has enabled more on-demand (or near-on-demand) viewing, broadcasters (and the regulator, Ofcom) have also evolved with the times so that on subscription services movies rated 15 and above now attract an a 10pm watershed and require PIN protection during the day.

Not so easy for the open internet. Even if you can use filters to block out specific content on your home computer - and there is still a big question about how effective these are - that doesn't solve the problem of restricting what the kids can access at the local internet cafe or at their more 'liberal' environment of their friends' houses.

So it has to be about better internet literacy for kids and their parents. And we mustn't underplay how vulnerable parents feel in all this. Practically all our other parenting skills involve a little bit of hand-me-down wisdom and home-made apple pie.

But our parents never had to discipline us on the whys and wherefores of what sites we visited, who we swapped email addresses with whom etc. This is completely new territory for 21st-century parents.

Dr Byron's suggestion of new website and public awareness campaign plans to address that and we'll continue to do our bit too. We're also keen to explore over the next few weeks how we can complement this initiative.

But it's also important that organisations like the BBC don't just hide behind parents as the first line of defence.

For me, the bigger challenge is not how to make involved parents take a more active role in their kids' digital consumption but what we need to do as a society to protect those youngsters who either don't have internet access at home, don't have any adult role models or whose parents are just not interested in what they access.

They'll continue to pick up their web skills down the high street. As a public service broadcaster we have an obligation to them too.

Reaching this audience will be a much harder hurdle and requires anyone providing public internet access to also get involved with the debate.

Over the next few days, we'll be dissecting the other recommendations and offering our expertise to make sure we're not creating an unnecessarily bureaucratic or unworkable framework for the future.

But, in principle, we share Dr Byron's general thesis that the internet is not dangerous per se, but we have to protect kids and educate them and their parents how to use it safely and appropriately.

Few would deny web is probably the most powerful technological advance of the 21st century. But we need to instill in the next generation that "with great power comes great responsibility".

And before you sigh at the cliche or cry plagiarism: yes, I know it's a quote from Spiderman.

But my part of the BBC's remit is to seek out or develop high quality content that can really speak to children everywhere.

If we can develop a message half as successful as the Spiderman franchise, we'll be laughing.

Marc Goodchild is Head of Interactive & On Demand, BBC Childrens