Western Daily Press (Saturday)
SAFETY FIRST
Talking about online dangers is crucial to help parents protect children
HOT on the heels of last week’s Data Protection Day came another attempt to help everyone stay safe online this week… but with an altogether different approach.
Interested organisations around the globe came together for Safer Internet Day on Tuesday – an admirable endeavour that everyone should know about.
While Data Protection Day is all about making sure you don’t reuse passwords or fall for phishing emails (among, of course, other things) Safer Internet Day is about protecting children from the seedy underbelly of the World Wide Web.
It sees organisations from around 170 countries come together to spark conversations on the key issues surrounding safety online.
Here in the UK the Safer Internet Centre (UKSIC) co-ordinates the activities in schools and for the wider community on the day itself.
The theme this year was ‘Want to talk about it? Making space for conversations about life online’.
But, of course, the efforts don’t stop after this week now the events are over.
The UKSIC hosts a huge amount of information aimed at parents, carers, teachers, and young people themselves, and targeting 12 different areas of online safety – from advice on social media use and live stream
The Safer Internet Day logo ing, to issues surrounding online pornography and dealing with cyberflashing and sexting.
It’s an essential resource for anyone with responsibility for the safety of young people – many of these threats can be present without parents, teachers, or guardians being aware and young people can be very secretive about their online behaviour. Especially when they’re embarrassed about whatever might be going on.
That’s why it’s so important for everyone concerned to have the right techniques to spot problems, and offer solutions.
The UKSIC has lots of guides and resources for parents, carers, grandparents, teachers… just about anybody who has a responsibility for a young person’s wellbeing. There are even training sessions available.
The responsibility doesn’t stop there, of course, and many of the main players in the tech business offer their own guides to safety on their platforms. Meta and Apple are even partners in Safer Internet Day.
Meta hosts a dedicated page on its website to help users understand the privacy settings and options across Facebook and Instagram at facebook.com/ privacy/center, with a dedicated section for teenagers.
Apple also has a dedicated page with lots of information about how parents and guardians can understand all safety features across its devices and platforms. You can find that at apple.com/families
Apple is also running a Today At Apple free workshop called Your Kids And Their Devices to take a deeper dive into the issue. See if there’s one at an Apple Store near you at apple.co/safer-internet-uk Visit the UK Safer Internet Centre at saferinternet.org.uk for the full range of resources, details of events, and more information.