With the start of the school holidays, the issue of children's online safety comes up again. This encourages parents and other peers to remain vigilant and monitor the availability of disadvantaged content and children's lives on the other side of the screen despite busy schedules. Experts from the technology company Huawei and the head of the Latvian Safer Internet Center Maija Katkovska share their opinion and recommendations about the risks posed by the Internet environment and ways to protect children from them.
The risk of child molestation and privacy remains relevant even during the holidays
Maija Katkovska, head of the Safer Internet Center in neighboring Latvia, says that the risks that children and young people face during summer vacations are not significantly different from everyday ones, but in summer, smart devices are used much more often without adult supervision. "The risks are mostly related to privacy because there is no adult around to monitor and dictate what content should and should not be posted online. Of course, the risk of seducing children is also relevant," concludes M. Katkovska.
In order to inform the public about the risk of seducing children, a test was published on the Latvian Safer Internet Center website https://drossinternets.lv/lv"Dangerous online friendship". In two months, more than 4,500 children and teenagers between the ages of 8 and 17 took the test. The results show that 16% or almost 800 children were persuaded or forced to take pictures or videos of themselves naked by an "online friend", and 59% also took pictures or videos of themselves naked at their request. On the other hand, 24% of test subjects of minors met online have talked about intimate parts of the body, 20% have received a photo or video of someone who made them feel afraid, embarrassed or confused. 18% of children and young people have received a photo, video or link of a naked adult or their private parts. These results are alarming and call for child safety education to become a priority for parents, educational institutions and others.
Technology company Huawei has also launched an initiative to educate children and young people about online threats. The SmartBus project is a mobile, bus-based classroom with a variety of digital devices with interactive lessons and games. So far, the bus has visited 126 schools in various European countries. Huawei SmartBus helps children recognize cyberbullying and provides guidance on how to report it. Learn how to safely share personal information that other people can see through websites and social networks. Using real-life examples, they learn about liars and the need to check the facts and not believe everything they see, even if the source seems reliable," explains Huawei Technologies Latvia Communications Manager.
Taking the device away from the child is not a permanent solution
In order to protect the child from the dangers of the Internet, it is very important to talk to the child, explaining how to behave in various situations and encouraging the child to immediately seek help from the parents. Unfortunately, sometimes parents solve the problem by taking away the smart device, but this is not the right way, because the child does not learn to react properly when faced with various problematic situations. For parents' peace of mind, M. Katkovska, head of the Safer Internet Center of Latvia, recommends setting up Google SafeSearch on the smart devices of elementary school children to prevent them from accessing websites that may negatively affect them, as well as to limit the content filmed by the YouTube platform. Huawei AppGallery, on the other hand, has several apps that help parents monitor their children's internet usage. By the way, if your child downloads apps to their smart devices themselves, you can set an age rating to limit access to inappropriate apps. M. Katkovska emphasizes that controlling every step of the child is also not the best solution, because the most important thing is to talk with the child, restrictive programs can only be an additional means of monitoring.
"I recommend reviewing the content used on smart devices with the children at the end of the day and discussing how many hours a day the child spends on such activities and what else could be done in that time. By seeing how much time is spent on specific platforms, parents have the opportunity to understand what their children's lives are like on the other side of the screen," says the specialist. Another solution that will be useful for parents during the summer holidays is a list of tasks for which the child "earns" screen time. For example, if a child walks the dog, cleans the room, washes the dishes, he can "earn" some screen time. M. Katkovska emphasizes that children, especially in elementary grades, need self-control mechanisms, because it is sometimes difficult to keep track of the time spent on smart devices.
More parental involvement and interest is needed
"Sometimes our arms seem too short to reach parents and communicate information about children's online safety." We do not condemn anyone, but parents lack time to talk and educate their children on this topic. It is necessary to understand that what children leave in the classroom, read and learn on the Internet affects their understanding of the world," concludes the head of the Latvian Safer Internet Center. She encourages at least a couple of times a week to have dinner together without household appliances and discuss what the child is doing online and what experiences he has had. Otherwise, when they find themselves in a problematic situation, the offspring are unlikely to turn to their parents for help, because they do not seem to be interested in it. Also, if a parent ever takes a device away from a child to punish them, the child will be reluctant to tell what happened to them for fear of having the device taken away again.
But in general, there is a positive trend in this area - after hearing about cases of fraud and account hacking, as well as the creation of fake accounts in the media, people are starting to pay more attention to Internet security. "We see that more and more people are gaining knowledge about these issues and learning from their own or others' mistakes, and the understanding of the use of smart devices, the risks associated with them and ways to protect yourself is slowly forming," Maija Katkovska summarizes.
"Children spend more and more time online. In order to ensure your safety in the virtual environment, I would like to encourage parents to include cyber security issues in the parenting process. For example, explain that strangers you meet online can't always be trusted and that online identities may not match reality. Show children how to manage the amount of publicly available data, review cookie permissions, evaluate and verify the reliability of information, help with regular software updates. It is also recommended to say that suspicious emails it's better not to open letters from strangers, to learn to assess the reliability and security level of websites before entering your data," emphasizes Inese Šuļžanoka, head of communications at Huawei Technologies Latvia.
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