“Cyber bullies, stalkers, hackers, and inappropriate content are online. Spend the time to educate your children about the risks, how to identify and avoid them before they happen, and that anything that makes them feel concerned or uncomfortable is cause for your immediate attention and intervention.”
This is the advice of Brett Russell, chief information security officer (CISO) of MetroFibre Networx.
“Open the lines of communication so that your child shares any concerns with you.
“Put the necessary security and monitoring measures in place to keep them safer online.
“Because children are online so much without your supervision, you want to empower them with the understanding and knowledge to be able to identify acceptable and unacceptable online content and behaviour when you are not around.”
According to the company, there are four types of risks while being online:
- Content risks X Sexually explicit and other inappropriate content in music videos, movies or online games, simulated or real violence, hate sites, fake news, harmful content like self-harm, drug use, suicide, negative body image content, and more.
- Contact risks X Coming into contact with online predators posing as children, online scammers, and others who may try to persuade them to meet in real life or provide location details.
- Conduct risks X Behaving in inappropriate or hurtful ways online or being the victim of such behaviour including cyber bullying, sexting, making unauthorised online purchases, revealing inappropriate content or information.
- Contract risks X This includes your child signing up for contracts, or terms and conditions they are not aware of or do not fully understand, or making unauthorised purchases which may open them up to identity theft or fraud, receiving inappropriate content, marketing messages or scams, and having their personal data collected from apps and the device they use.
MetroFibre Networx shares tips on how to keep your child safe online:
Encourage straight talk
Before you allow your children to access any digital platforms, make sure they understand the risks around content, contact, conduct, and contract; all the potential content they could be exposed to; and what is appropriate and not.
They should understand that the very same “stranger dangers” that lurk in the real world, exist on the web in many different formats.
Make rules with your children such as never uploading or downloading photos of themselves or friends, never divulging any personal information whatsoever (age, gender, address and so on) and never talk to strangers online. Your children should always clear any downloads and apps to be installed on their devices with you first.
Control online content and browsing
Google has a child-friendly version at safesearchkids.com – it is a safe search engine designed for children, with excellent material for parents and children on how to keep safe online.
While Youtube Kids provides a version of the Youtube service oriented towards children, it is not always guaranteed to be safe for children as it is extremely difficult to curate the sheer volume of videos uploaded to the platform.
Use this service with caution.
Services such as Disney Plus, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have accounts for kids which have content specifically selected according to age groups.
These tend to be safer to use, although be sure to protect against access to parent or adult accounts on the platforms using the relevant controls (pins and passwords).
Social media platforms are not intended for children and any participation of children that are younger will need express consent of a parent or guardian.
Many platforms have introduced age restrictions.
Virtual assistants, like Google assistant Siri and Bixby, could take a child to online places that they should not be.
To restrict what path your smart device’s voice assistant will lead your child, consider disabling them on child devices.
Monitor apps
There are various parental monitoring apps that allow you to keep track of your child’s online behaviour and what they can access, and even set time limits.
This functionality is now also built into your phones and devices.
Before investing in any apps, be aware of and try the built-in family protection tools that already exist in your device for free from Google (Android), Apple, and Microsoft.
Make use of DNS protection
Various companies such as Cloudflare provide a free filtering service on all your web requests to filter out malware, adult content and so on.
This can be configured on your router or various devices.
“Giving your family and children the gift of fibre connectivity is a massive advantage in terms of the educational progress and ability to keep pace with remote learning realities, as well as access to some of the incredible educational, recreational, and entertainment content that it holds.
“But with that gift comes the responsibilities of keeping your children safe online.,” concludes Brett.
