Today, it is so hard to imagine a life without using technology like the Internet and our mobile phones. These technologies allow us to connect to our family with a click or touch of a button. It also allows us to contact our loved ones and track the progress of our business. These are just some of the advantages that technology can bring to us. However, with the growing number of Internet users, security and cyber safety are issues that concern both individuals and businesses.
To help us remember better, Wikipedia lists the common concerns regarding Internet safety. Some of these are Spam, Phishing, Cyberbullying and computer viruses. Most of these are done to steal identity and steal valuable information from users and business that are online.
There are already a lot of countries who have laws and policies that protects online users and business from these cyber-crimes but are those enough?
Australian Independent Senator Nick Xenophon stated that the government should appoint a social media ombudsman to track down trolls on different social media sites. He said that the appointment of the social media guard would give Australians the same protections enjoyed by social media users in other countries. He made the suggestion after the 2010 incident when two memorial sites on Facebook for murder victims in Queensland were flooded by spammers with obscene and pornographic messages.
The growing numbers of cyberbullying and online crimes have prompted lawmakers to take action about this issue. Many organizations are developing programs to inform the public and give advices to schools as to what they can do to avoid these incidents.
However, for policies to work, the cooperation from the ones concerned is needed. Here are some tips for parents, children and the general public.
Cyber Safety Tips For Parents:
- Be aware of the things that your child is doing online. Talk to them of the websites that they visit and make sure that you’re familiar with these websites.
- Place computers in the living room or in communal area of the house.
- Tell your child that you are there to help them if they face problems on the Internet or if they are unsure about anything.
- Before giving them Internet access, remind them to keep personal information private like their address and phone numbers.
- Remind your child that the Internet is open to everyone and not all of the information written there is true.
- You should encourage your child to learn how to balance their online time with their “real world” time. Limiting their Internet access might help.
- There should be Internet rules and you should let your child know and agree to these rules.
Buy cheap Viagra online
Cyber Safety Tips For Children:
- Ask an adult if you are unsure of the things that you see online.
- Don’t fake your age on websites and enter sites that are not suited to your age.
- Do not give our your personal information on the Internet like address and phone number.
- If you have a social media account, do not add people as online friends unless you personally know them in real life.
- Never meet a friend that you just met online without taking a parent.
- Remember not to believe everything on the Internet.
- Read articles about cyber safety and cyber bullying to increase your knowledge about these things so that you could avoid them.
Cyber Safety Tips For The Public:
- You should use strong passwords to your online accounts. For example, you need to have a password that has a lower and upper case letters with numbers.
- Before you send anything, think about it and reread it.
- Don’t post inappropriate content anywhere online. Remember, the contents that you post on the Internet are forever.
- Make sure to check the privacy settings of your social networking account.
- Do not click on links that are embedded in e-mails and multimedia messages. If you still want to visit the site, type it on the address bar of the browser and check it from there.
- Tell the authorities if you are being bullied or if your account was stolen online.