National senior safety week
Guarding against identity theft and beyond
With technology advancements and upgrades coming at breakneck speed, there’s always something more up-to-date to make lives easier, including fraudsters and identity thieves. To mark this year’s National Senior Safety Week, Nov. 6 to the 12, the Canada Safety Council and Telus are teaming up to shed light on how seniors can keep themselves and their information safe, and out of the hands of criminals. The Competition Bureau of Canada estimates that seniors between the ages of 60 and 79 were scammed out of $94 million between January 2014 and December 2017.
“Criminals tend to look for the path of least resistance and, too often, that passes through our most vulnerable sections of society,” said Jack Smith, president of the Canada Safety Council. “Seniors seem to be easy targets for a lot of scammers, which is why we feel it’s crucial that we do our part to keep the elderly as informed and prepared as possible to avoid being victimized.”
When it comes to e-mail scams, there are some clues that can indicate if a message is legitimate or an attempted scam.
Unlike professional e-mails, scam e-mails are often littered with spelling and/or grammatical errors. These messages also frequently come from unknown e-mail addresses, do not address the recipient by name and feature low-quality images.
“It is unfortunate that seniors are often the target of cyber scams. Recognizing this vulnerability, we are pleased to team up with the Canada Safety Council to help empower them to stay safe online,” said Nimtaz Kanji, director of Telus Wise.
“Providing seniors with online safety tips and information will allow them to participate in our digital world without fear and enable them to take advantage of the positive benefits technology has to offer.”
Over the course of National Senior Safety Week, more safety tips relating to smartphones, social networks and insights on the most common scams impacting seniors will be shared.
For more information, visit the Canada Safety Council’s website: canadasafetycouncil.org