Online Safety

Students are leaving themselves open to the risks of identity theft as they too often share their personal information with others. Over 60% of students don’t think they are sharing information with big tech companies. But through the use of cookies, data harvesting through service signups and leaving social media posts public, students are probably sharing much more than they realise.

Try to have conversations with your children about the importance of privacy and what information should not be shared, or at least that they should consider who they’re sharing information with and what it might be used for in the future. Remember that data protection laws apply in the UK but that these rules are difficult to enforce with tech companies that don’t have a UK presence.

Data security is going to be a much bigger part of our children’s future and they should be encouraged to behave appropriately now so that they are better able to cope as they enter the world of work. Using a different password on each service, making those passwords complex and being prepared to change them from time to time is good practice at all stages of life.

The vast majority (92%) say they feel safe online and 82% think their parents know enough about online safety to support them. 

30% of students have seen sexually explicit content with roughly one third of these finding it shocking or traumatic enough to feel they should report it.

It is important that you are aware that most students in the school would go to their parents first for help. Ideally, develop a culture of communication about internet usage in your household and encourage your children to discuss the threats they might encounter and how to respond.

Expect children to ‘get it wrong’ sometimes and be prepared to help them deal with issues that might arise. Reporting incidents to the Police or CEOP are much more likely to lead to a satisfactory result if they are reported early. An open and non-judgemental dialogue is the best route to being informed and being able to act in a timely manner.

Over 90% of students say they spend more than 2 hours on a screen each day, with over 20% saying they rack up over 5 hours of screen time each day.

Almost 70% of students interact with other online each day and in most cases this involves posting a picture of themselves.

Nearly 60% of students say their phone is on and next to their bed overnight.

The recommendation from Young Minds (see link below) is that there should be clear, negotiated, guidelines in your household about how much screen time is acceptable and how much privacy should be afforded.

Most students claim to know that there are screen time (almost 90%) and content filtering tools (66%) on their devices, but the majority say screen time restrictions are disabled (only 35% on) and only just over (53%) half have the content filtering active. Of those who have these tools active over half (53%) say they control them. Roughly one third of students who say the screen time or content filtering controls are turned on on their devices, think they could (have) disabled them. When the screen time and filtering tools are activated students say they feel safer.

Almost all Internet Service Provider (ISPs) provide the option to filter certain types of internet traffic. You can usually turn these on very easily by logging on to your ISP or Mobile Contract provider and choosing an option to turn on parental controls.

Screen time controls vary according to the platform – Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android etc… A quick Google of the platform and how to turn on screen time options should lead you to the latest instructions for how to do this on your, and your child’s, devices.

As far as who should be responsible for ensuring they know how to stay safe online, over 75% of students say they are responsible for knowing how to do this.

With this in mind we have provided a range of links to help guide you in helping your children set-up and use technology safely.