Online Protection For Your Children

"Meet Tom, a 14-year-old boy who has a deep love for his smartphone, because he is able to have his phone online, he can surf the Internet anytime. He literally sees the phone as his best friend and likes to chat with people he does not know.

They ask him to do many things with his phone like sending his personal details, his family and friends’ details, his school details and all the information that they want to enable them to know him better in exchange for free cool apps that he can download to his phone.”

This is an example given by the Digital Forensics and Informations Security Research Cluster at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), highlighting the dangers of the internet for younger users.

Sadly, many people still fail to understand the consequences that come about when children have access to the internet. From online predators to bullying, social issues of all kinds have stolen the lives of many innocent children, leading either to erratic behavioural changes or even suicide in extreme cases.

A child protection bill in the Namibian constitution states that the minister must designate child protection organisations which meet the prescribed requirements or provide social workers with the intent of protecting children.

Although these organisations are in place, the problems children face online are becoming increasingly dangerous. Often children willingly accept friend requests, for example, from people who are over the age of 18, sometimes unknowingly, as predators use strange profile pictures and other information to deceive people.

And once they invade the child’s inbox, they use a number of tricks to obtain personal information, which is later used for devious purposes. But it’s not only this manoeuvre that they use. It could even be in the form of spam via email, where they are told bogus stories, leading them to believe that they are performing the greater good. With the example mentioned in the first paragraph, even apps can do much damage. “Everything perceived as ‘free’ comes with a hidden price that will be paid at a later stage,” the Research Cluster reports said.

“Children have started having their own profiles, but we need to ask, are parents supervising them?” psychologist Nikki Meiring said. “It’s difficult to monitor what children are doing because they don’t know where their children are getting internet access from, which is more common now.”

According to a research journal titled ‘A Preliminary Survey on Child Online Protection Initiatives’ with a particular focus on Namibia, it supports Meiring’s comment by stating that “internet penetration has increased in Namibia” which is mainly because of “smart phone ubiquity” and “wide availability of cheap broadband”, and with this increase, comes more problems.

So what is the solution? “In my opinion, children shouldn’t have access to the internet at a young age,” Meiring said.

“Some parents allow their children to use phones on weekends, but this isn’t always effective. Parents should download apps such as NetNanny if they are able to. Parents need to be more vigilant and perhaps allow their children certain hours to be online.”

Reader Kondjeni Ndikukutu feels limiting the type of technology available to your child is the way to go.

“Buy your child a ‘katoshe/tamagotchi’ phone.”

One of the most problematic issues to date that have come with internet access include cyberbullying.

If you are getting bullied, do not sink down to their level. The majority of the time bullies will leave you alone if you do not respond.

If you retaliate, you are just as bad as the person who is bullying you.

There is one advantage of being bullied online and that is the fact that you can save the evidence. It is always good to have proof in case the bully tries to claim that they did not do it.

Although it may be hard, sometimes you just need to tell an adult about what is going on. If that is too hard, tell a friend that you can trust.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to block the bully. If you stop the bullying before it escalates, then you would not have to go through the whole process of telling an adult or having to save the evidence.