What is Online safety?

Online safety can also be called ‘internet safety’, ‘e-safety’ or ‘web safety’.

Online safety is often described as the safe and responsible use of technology. This includes the use of the internet and also other means of communication such as messaging, gaming, email and social media.

Always be careful when you are communicating online. It can help you to keep in touch with your friends and help your education, but if used incorrectly, it can also cause harm – to you and to others.

Read the poster below for some online safety advice:

Remember help is always available at school if you are having any problems online.

Don’t be afraid to talk to your teacher or another adult at school.

If you or anyone you know is worried about Child Exploitation, Online Protection or anything related to Internet safety please click the link below which will take you to the CEOP reporting website:

Tips for staying safe online:

• Make sure you keep new online friends strictly online. If someone you don't know asks to be your online friend you must ensure an adult knows about it.

• Know how to use the CEOP Button and how to report it to the CEOP Centre if you are concerned about someone’s online behaviour towards you. 

Staying safe over the holidays

As we are all bombarded by adverts for the latest technology and gadgets during the holidays, it is important to remember that when toys are internet-enabled or Smart toys there may be risks associated with them for our children using them unsupervised. A new term, “the internet of things” is used to describe these internet connected devices.

Risks include:

• children being able to search unsuitable content through tablets, televisions, smart speakers, phones etc,
• making in-app purchases and spending money from the parents account without knowledge or consent,
• some devices are more vulnerable to hacking and monitoring as there are no security standards in place for connected devices,
• internet-enabled toys such as action figures, drones or learning development toys may collect use and share personal information via the internet.

How can we protect our children from any potential risks around accessing unsuitable content via these devices? 

• Talk to your child about the dangers of connected toys and devices, and supervise their use. No parental controls are a substitute for supervising your child.
• Research different products to make sure you are aware of the risks involved with what you are buying your children.
• Read the manual to find information about the privacy of the device and how to control the privacy settings.
• Set up parental controls through your broadband provider. Visit your broadband provider’s website for further information on what you can limit or stop.
• Enable safe search on your internet-connected devices to limit the material that can be searched online.
• Change the default password when you buy a connected device or toy and use a strong password that cannot be easily guessed.
• Make sure that your blue tooth devices are set to  undiscoverable to ensure that they can’t be connected to by nearby devices or so that your child can’t unintentionally pair with an unknown device.
• If your child’s toy uses speech commands it is likely that these have been recorded and saved on the device. The manual will show you how to review or delete these.

For further information regarding e-safety please check the following link: www.thinkyouknow.co.uk