Created by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, the campaign uses cartoons to show five to seven-year-olds that people on the internet are not always who they claim to be.

Research suggests that around 80% of children in the UK use social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and Twitter.

The campaign has the support of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop), who are behind a number of campaigns to encourage safer browsing to protect young people one internet. One of the founding principles being that by raising awareness of online risks at an early age, children will be better protected as they grow up.

One of Ceop’s main innovations has been the introduction of a “Report Abuse” button that has been rolled out onto a number of websites and has led to around 500 cases a week being reported, four of which are from a child at an “immediate” risk of harm..

“Unfortunately, some of the victims we see here are very young,” said Ceop Head Jim Gamble.

“People will try to find out where they are, where they go to school. Children can expose themselves to unnecessary risk.

“We do see children who are younger and younger being exposed to risk – and the risk is not always clear. There are a number of subtle messages.

“Unbelievably some of these children have access to webcams, but that’s the world we live in.”

Information stored on Facebook user profiles, most notably their contacts or “friends”, would be harvested by the government and held on a central database if the scheme gets the go-ahead. The data, the Home Office claim, is needed to tackle crime gangs and terrorists who might use the sites, but they insisted it would not keep the content of conversations.

The proposals form part of a wider government plan to store details of all phone calls, e-mails and websites visited on a central database, something which the Home Office claim is necessary to allow police and security services “keep up with technological advances”.

A spokesman said: “The government has no interest in the content of people’s social network sites and this is not going to be part of our upcoming consultation.

“We have been clear that the communications revolution has been rapid in this country and the way in which we collect communications data needs to change, so that law enforcement agencies can maintain their ability to tackle terrorism and gather evidence.”

Telephone companies are already required to store details of all calls, such as the time and date, location and who made them, for a period of 12 months so that they may be used in criminal investigations or court cases.

At present, there is no regulation to prevent security forces from browsing internet profiles but it is the Home Offices’ intention to store such information on a central database that has raised concerns.

Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, described the policy as “overkill” and is reportedly considering lobbying ministers over the proposal. He also added that the company was willing to communicate with security authorities over any suspicious activity occurring on Facebook.

Around 17 million Brits are thought to use Facebook at present, making it the UK’s most popular social networking platform. Bebo, which is aimed mainly at teenagers and young adults, has more than 10 million users whilst Myspace boasts a similar number of members.

Reports in the Sydney Morning Herald told of how Karina Wells of Sydney, Australia was approached by her “friend” Adrian, claiming to be stranded in Lagos, Nigeria and in need of $500 to pay for a return flight.

The message was however sent by a would-be fraudster who had stolen Adrian’s Facebook account details via what is believed to be a seperate phishing or malware attack.

The scammer instructed Wells to deposit the money in a Western Union money transfer account, but was foiled when Wells convinced them into disclosing further details.

Wells claimed that whilst the scammers used “relatively good English”, her suspicions were raised when the message used the term “cell” as opposed to the more common local term of “mobile phone”.

Wells continued in dialogue with the fraudster, obtaining further information, including their Western Union account numbers, before passing on details of the scam to the police.

“Naturally I was concerned as, to all intents and purposes, this seemed to be legitimate,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“I pretended that I would help, obtained all the details of where he was and forwarded them to both Facebook and the relevant authorities.”

The scam, which is a variation of the common “419 scam” that is widely associated with Nigeria, is one of many currently being used to distribute malware or extort money via social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Bebo.

Typically, the victim receives a Facebook message from a friend with a subject such as “LOL. You’ve been catched on hidden cam, yo” or “Nice dancing! Shouldn’t you be ashamed?”

The body of the message contains a video clip link that appears to go to a legitimate site such as Facebook or YouTube but, when clicked on, it takes the user to a bogus web page.

Before the users can play the video they are told they need to download a video player upgrade, which is in fact a password-stealing virus.

The stolen account details are then used to contact the users friends with requests for money, or to further distribute malicious software.

In September security firm WebSense reported on spam emails, seeming sent from an @facebookmail.com address, that tell the victim they have received an invitation from Facebook to add a friend.