Resources

Safer Internet Day 2021

Safer Internet Day (SID) 2021 will be on Tuesday 9 February.

Many parents have concerns or questions about whether films their children can watch on the internet have age ratings. Here is our guide for parents to finding films with BBFC age ratings online. You can also read our tips for parents about accessing films safely and legally online, and protecting younger viewers here.

Watch our previous SID video and read more about how BBFC tools and partnerships are being used to help create a better, safer, internet for young people.

Here you can find out more about how the BBFC works with young people, their parents, and other partners, to help create a safer internet.

What young people tell us

At the last review of the BBFC Classification Guidelines, young people told us what they think about age ratings & watching films online:

  • 3 in 4 teens say it’s either very or quite important to have film classifications

  • 49% of Teenagers say they watch films regularly via PC/ipad

  • 27% watch films regularly via a games console

  • 12% watch films regularly via a smart phone

(BBFC Classification Guidelines Research 2014)

What parents say

During research into classifying film content available online, 90% of parents with children under 16 said it’s important to have consistent BBFC classifications for video-on-demand content.
(Research carried out by Bernice Hardie, 2011)

Finding age ratings for Video-on-Demand films

We work with major Video-on-Demand (VoD) platforms to provide age ratings for films. You can find a list of these platforms on the BBFC website, digital age ratings page.

The BBFC app

The BBFC app is a free app for iPhone and Android devices. It lists BBFC age ratings for films at the cinema and on DVD/Blu-ray. All films on the app include BBFCinsight.

Ratings info

Ratigns info explains why a film got the rating it did. Short BBFCinsight appears on the black card before a film begins at the cinema and on most cinema posters and DVD/Blu-ray packaging.

Ratings info can be found for films on the BBFC app and on the BBFC website. Ratings info gives you more detail about why a film received the classification it did. You can watch our BBFCinsight video on our ratings info page on the main BBFC website, and here on CBBFC.

What else is on the BBFC website?

The BBFC website lets you search for the age rating of every film, video and VoD film rated by the BBFC.

The BBFC Guidelines are on the website with a clear explanation about what is acceptable at each age rating.

You can also find education resources including case studies about high profile classification decisions, and episodes of the BBFC podcast. 

Using the internet on mobile phones

As well as classifying films and videos, we also work with the UK's mobile phone networks. They use BBFC Guidelines to ensure that content we would rate 18 is not available on mobile networks if you're under 18.

What about music videos on the internet?

We're working with the three major UK record labels, and Vevo and YouTube, to see how rating music videos can improve child protection online.