Online Safety

Online Safety Guidelines for Kids, Teens, and Adults

The internet is one of those incredible tools that kids and teens can use to advance their learning and education, to socialise and interact with friends, and to have some fun and be entertained. But as with any tool, it's important to know what makes it safe or unsafe, and how to protect yourself from harm.

Internet safety tips for kids:

• Supervise your children's use of the internet.
• Ensure connected devices, including mobile devices, are used in common areas such as loungerooms.
• Ensure online account names, e.g. gamer tags, are appropriate and can never be traced, including names, contact details and physical addresses.
• Educate yourself about online services and functionality, including social media such as Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, messaging services and online forums.
• Support your children through regular discussions about appropriate and inappropriate internet usage, online experiences and questions.
• Encourage your children to report to you, a teacher, or other support person, about experiences with inappropriate online content and the behaviours of others online.
• Check browsing and search histories.
• Use internet filtering products and security software to block/restrict access to inappropriate content, for example, certain websites, video chats, forums or live streaming.

Internet safety tips for teens:

As your kids grow and enter their teens, the boundaries may move a little further out. They may use devices outside of the home common areas, they may purchase things online, they may spend more time on social media.

• Talk to your teens about the online threats you're concerned about so they can more easily identify them. This should include cyber bullying or harassment, contact from strangers, and phishing or identity theft scams.
• Give them ground rules. Some simple ground rules include: not sharing personal information online, not accepting a friend request from people they don’t know, not opening email from unknown senders, and not sharing photos online.
• Agree that you will be a follower or friend of all their social media accounts. This will give you the opportunity to learn more about each social media platform, so you can identify threats or hazards, and it will give you an opportunity to see what they're sharing online.
• Be on the lookout for secretive behaviour, like hiding or moving their screens when you enter the room, creating new accounts, or any big behavioural changes after time online.

Internet safety tips for adults:

e-Safety is just as important for adults as it is for kids and teens. Below are some tips for keeping your online accounts safe, including protecting your personal and financial information.

• Update your devices regularly to ensure you have the latest security in place
• Turn on multi-factor authentication to add another layer of protection to your accounts
• Back up your important files to safeguard your data from threats
• Use passphrases that use four or more random words and password managers to help generate or store secure and unique passphrases
• Don't reuse passwords or use the same password for multiple systems
• Always triple check the sender email address before opening attachments or clicking on links
• Don't reply to texts from numbers you don't know, especially when they claim to be a member of your family needing help