Cyber safe families
As a parent, you have the dual responsibility to protect yourself and your family when online. A digitally mature family can be cyber safe.
What is cyber safety?
Cyber safety is the safe and responsible use of online information. How and where you keep your personal information and who has access to it is important as most of us and our children spend a lot of time online whether it is for work, school or social purposes.
What are the risks?
Being online allows us to learn and socialise, but it opens us up to risks. These can be financial (scams), physical (grooming) or emotional and social (cyberbullying).
We can mitigate these risks by learning how to be cyber safe.
One step to being safer online is by knowing how to identify scams. These have the potential to steal your identity with the intention to cause harm. We need to be able to easily spot a scam, so we don't respond to them.
Another step is to understand what not to share online. For example, when you or your child post your photo, phone number, home address, or car registration plates on social media, these details could end up being 'harvested' or misused by others.
How can you be cyber safe?
Being aware of what, where and how your personal information is available online is the first step to keeping it safe. Some key points to remember are-
- Know how to create strong passwords, different passwords for different accounts and never to share them
- Control cookies and add-ons to avoid being tracked online
- Consider creating a family tech agreement (for families with children age 5-12)
- Learn how to guard yourself against Phishing, Smishing and Vishing scams.
- Update your software to the latest version
- Protect your accounts with multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Back up your data to an external drive or the cloud
- Log out of your device when not in use.
Social media day
Families can sometimes find it hard to guide their children in using social media technologies safely. We have collated a few resources below for Social media day which is on 30 June 2022 to help guide you in having these conversations with your children and possibly setting some boundaries.
- Create a family tech agreement with your child (under 5 – 8 years old) on how and when they can use technology
Understand the basics of online safety, educate your child and set some rules with them
Think about and get help to decide if your child is old enough to use a certain device and apps such as social media
Build good digital habits in your child from a young age
Learn how you can have hard-to-have conversations with your child (both 5-12 and 13-17 years old) about their privacy and security online
Learn about online privacy, what the risks are and know what to share and who to share with online
- Parents of primary school-age children can take their children through learning about digital footprints so that before they start sharing images and pictures online, they know how long these tracks stay online and what this means
Parents of high school-age children can take them through learning about digital tracks left online due to sharing content or engaging with others and how to be mature and respectful about this.
Privacy Awareness
The NSW Department of Education supports Privacy Awareness Week 2022. This year the theme is 'Privacy: The foundation of trust – we all have a role to play'.
Poor privacy awareness and a lack of privacy controls can lead to data breaches and the theft of your digital identity. Take a look at this infographic showing where the biggest data breaches have occurred over the last few years. Check out the Facebook figures!
Use the resources below to learn how to protect your digital identity and keep your personal information private.
- Help your child stay in control of their personal information, online photos, and social media identity
Learn to protect your child’s device with this parental controls video and fact sheet
Read about parental controls for social media, games, and apps
- Learn if the internet is spying on you in this podcast discussion.
From the Office of the Australian and NSW Information Commissioner:
Top 10 tips to protect you online
Start to have conversations with your child about online privacy
- How to respond to a data breach
From Google and Microsoft:
- Set good digital rules with your Android devices
Keep your children safer online with the Microsoft Family Safety app for Windows devices
Information Microsoft collects from families
Digital citizenship
A good digital citizen knows how to be responsible, safe and effective on the internet and digital devices. The Digital Citizenship website has articles and resources for parent and carers to do with healthy technology use, avoiding scams, protecting your personal information and digital reputation, how to create strong passwords etc. To get help with online bullying you can head to cyberbullying and teenagers.
Online safety for families
Parents and carers can use our collection of resources below to improve their understanding of online safety at home and what are some of the important considerations.
- The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) has published the Top 10 questions parents have about online security that you can use to make cyber safe decisions
- The Australian Institute of Family Studies has published a paper with information about online safety with practical tips for parents.
- Playing IT safe contains information for parents and carers about starting online safety conversations with their child (3-5 years), as well as three online games that can be played together to support these family discussions.
- If you or a family member is a victim of a cyber crime you should report to Scamwatch. You will also find on their website news articles and information and data on current scams.
- Online safety for under 5's booklet - practical advice and strategies
- Online safety picture book and song - positive habits with technology
- Story puzzles with Swoosh and Glide - play-based learning
- eSafety guide -learn how to protect yourself online
- Parent webinars - learn how to help your child develop online safety skills
- Family tech agreement - downloadable documents and guides to help your family when online
- The NSW Police’s online safety advice can assist parents in addressing some of the many issues and risks associated with using the internet
- Families with Apple devices can learn about privacy and how to control access to your information. Help is also available for parents to manage their child's device use
- Microsoft’s family safety tips can help you child be safer online. You can also use their quick internet safety tips, ideas for improving communication in helping to protect your family online
- Google has also published information on online safety for families with parental control guides and family-friendly experiences
- SchoolTV has published a series of Cyber safety videos by Dr Michael Carr-Gregg who is a well-renowned psychologist and has written several bestselling books including books on parenting
- Playing IT safe contains information for parents and carers about starting online safety conversations with their child (3-5 years), as well as three online games that can be played together to support these family discussions.
- ABC Education has published advice on social media parenting, cyber safety, children’s privacy and how to protect children online.