Keeping safe online Who are they talking to? What are they seeing? What is their digital footprint? How can parents keep children safe? Surveys tell us that many young people spend more than 30 hours a week online. Do you know who your daughter is talking to, what they can access and what digital footprint they are leaving?

Who is your daughter talking to? The first risk of being online is knowing who you might be talking to. You don’t know and, more importantly, they don’t know! Ask your daughters how many followers they have on their various social media accounts. How many of those people do they know personally? By having these social media accounts and not setting privacy settings to the highest, or turning off location finding settings, strangers can easily find out enough information to pose a physical threat as well as an online threat. Students will have access to unsafe online communities and people who are out to take advantage of them. This video is produced by CEOP, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre . You do everything to keep your child physically safe but it’s much harder to keep them safe when they are online.

How many of these Apps do you know? The number of new Apps is growing hourly and it is difficult to keep up with the dangers that each new App poses. These Apps enable young people to be open to cyberbullying, explicit material and unsafe digital communities of people with bad intentions. Most of these have a minimum age rating of 13 or, in the case of WhatsApp, 16. Bing active on these apps enables people to get information about your child. It also enables personal information, arguments or photos to be permanent records that can be screen shot and shared, only to reappear at a college interview or an argument with friends. There is also growing evidence of the dangers to mental health for young people of spending too much time checking social media and worrying about their online image. These Apps are designed to keep people online for longer than they might otherwise be. It’s also proven that the blue screen of the phone will stimulate the brain which will stop people from sleeping for about an hour after looking at the phone or tablet. WhatsApp - group chat Houseparty - group chat Live.me – video streaming Yubo (Yellow – Tindr for children) Omegle - chat Facebook Snapchat – posts don’t “disappear” if someone has taken a screenshot Twitter Pinterest Musicly – (music) video live streaming Hot or not -like Tindr Calculator – App to store information but have it look like something that a parent might approve of Askfm – Ask a question and get an answer from the online community – the sources of a lot of online bullying. Tumblr Instagram

In a recent survey, employers were asked whether they used social media to screen prospective employers. 91% answered ‘yes’? 69% of employers said they had rejected a candidate because of what they saw about them on a social networking site. The following slides are from an assembly delivered to year 8 by the online safety, safeguarding lead in October 2018.

Why were candidates rejected? Posted inappropriate photos Posted inappropriate comments Posted something about alcohol or drugs Demonstrated poor communication skills

What can people find out about your daughter?

The Advice… Crank up your privacy settings (but do not rely on them!) Don’t post negative comments – you will live to regret them Don’t engage in cyber bullying – it’s a crime Choose wisely who your ‘friends’ are – if they don’t know you, they shouldn’t have the right to see your information Think before you post – once it’s online, you have lost control Never post emotionally – think before your post Sending pictures of yourself or reposting pictures of others with only a few clothes on can lead to a criminal record and being put on the sex offenders register Remember that your phone can be traced Even if someone else sends a message on your phone, you are responsible

Remember the golden rule… If you wouldn’t want your granny or interviewer to see it, don’t post it!

Sexting An issue for older teens is sexting. Increasingly children are sending inappropriate pictures of themselves to girlfriends or boyfriends, not thinking of the consequences of that image being available to anyone in the future. Once a picture is sent, even to someone who might be your girlfriend/boyfriend at the time, it is almost impossible to take it down. Watch video (link embedded in the picture) People who pass on these inappropriate pictures are committing a crime and could end up with a criminal record or being put on the sex offenders’ register. The people whose photo is out there will almost certainly not be able to take down these photos and will need to live with the consequences of that photograph resurfacing at any time. You need to be aware that increasingly the first thing a college tutor or job interviewer will do is google your name. Get someone else to do this for you and see just what information does come up. Is this going to create a negative image that will cause you problems in the future?

The school has firewalls to stop students accessing inappropriate material from the school computers and WiFi. However, what can they access when out of school? No-one would let a 12 year old into a cinema to watch an 18 film yet the factory settings on an i-phone will allow someone access to explicit material unless it is restricted. Setting restrictions is not about limiting freedom for the sake of it; it’s about keeping them as safe as you do in the real world. Have a look at your daughter’s phone – what do they have access to? These screen shots are from an iPhone 6. All phone models and makes are different. A quick google will show you how to set up restrictions for the particular model of phone that your daughter has.

Want to know more? www.childnet.com www.thinkuknow.co.uk www.ceop.police.uk www.safenetwork.org.uk www.parentzone.org.uk These links are all on the school website. Contact Ms Farrenson at school for more information.