Deterring unwanted contact
Sharing personal information, photos and details of planned events in publicly accessible forums may leave young people more vulnerable to unwanted contact.
Using privacy settings
To help manage the risk that they may experience unwanted contact, children and young people should be encouraged to only share personally identifiable details with people they personally know, and to use privacy settings to restrict access to information by others.
Keeping social networking sites private
Social networking sites allow individuals to set up a personal profile, which might include their full name, interests, location and photos. Users can choose the level of information they provide in their profile. Social networking sites provide the opportunity to contact friends and keep each other updated on daily activities, either publicly or privately. Most social networking sites have age guidelines, requiring users to be of a certain age. However, students can and do fabricate their ages.
While most social networking sites feature blocking and privacy settings that allow a profile to be set to ‘private’, and are therefore only accessible to known and approved contacts or friends, young people may decide not to use this setting. If profiles are set to ‘public’ it is possible for anyone to make contact or view their profile. Public profiles are also searchable by keywords such as name, address or school.
Keeping safe in virtual worlds and gaming websites
Online identities can be created for online environments including public sites and protected profile sites. While some people use their real names online, many identify themselves using a pseudonym with varying degrees of identifiable information. Children and young people should be encouraged to use pseudonyms.
Inform a trusted adult when sharing personal information
While many children and young people will agree to and even enjoy the use of pseudonyms or avatars for many online activities, some will want to disclose personal information for the purposes of enriching relationships, demonstrating trust in others, and seeking attention. For example, creative students will want credit for online films they have shared.
It is unrealistic to assume that children and young people will never disclose their personal information online. Children and young people should be encouraged to share details about where they are sharing their information and the kinds of people they are communicating with.
Encouraging discussion of online activities from an early age and providing a trusted cybersafety contact person for all students with online concerns is an important step to help provide a safety net for students.