Safe on the internet with children
Dangers and tips parents should know
The Internet is often an unsafe place, especially for children and teenagers.
© Telecom
Parents are particularly asked to pay attention to their children’s data on the Internet. An expert knows the dangers and has advice.
We’ve long since gotten used to sharing photos and videos with friends and family online. However, with the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence and the ever faster growing possibilities for criminals, potential dangers on the Internet are also increasing. This is shown not least by the recently published by the Federal Criminal Police Office Report on the state of cybercrime in Germany, which records more than 130,000 cases of cybercrime for 2022 in Germany.
Parents in particular should protect the identity of their children. In a current campaign, Telekom is therefore raising awareness of the dangers of identity theft, the video “Message from Ella” went viral in a short time. The hypothetical scenario shows how easy it is to steal the identity of other people, especially children and young people, with today’s means. Expert Marike Mehlmann-Tripp from Deutsche Telekom explains how you can protect yourself from this and which scenarios you should be particularly careful of.
“Today, many parents can no longer imagine not putting photos or videos of their children online,” says Mehlmann-Tripp about the situation on social networks and messenger services. For this very reason, however, it is important to keep a few rules in mind. A post like “Our little Tim is already three years old today” seems harmless, but reveals the child’s name and the full date of birth. “It is all the more important,” says Mehlmann-Tripp, “to regularly check the privacy settings of the social networks and ensure that the shared content is only visible to people you trust. Another important tip is to only post photos on which the child’s face cannot be seen or has been made unrecognizable by a filter.”
Identity theft with the help of AI: The problem is growing, so is awareness
An increasingly urgent problem is the possibilities that cybercriminals find through powerful artificial intelligence. In order to raise awareness of this, Mehlmann-Tripp’s employer is also focusing on this danger in a current campaign: “A scenario that Telekom is showing with the current spot of the #SharewithCare campaign shows is identity theft using AI. This is a serious and growing risk. Cyber criminals can use photos and videos to create fake identities. Photographs of children may be used in manipulated media content that depicts the child in embarrassing, abusive, or dangerous situations.”
Nerves are quickly on edge when you hear the deceptively real words from your own offspring: “Mom, I urgently need money!” As a layman, you might not even think of suspecting a fake. The most important thing, says Mehlmann-Tripp, is to “stay alert”. In the case of such a message, the respective request should never be complied with immediately, but rather the person should always be contacted first via the usual route.
If that is not possible, the expert advises analyzing the message in detail: “There are a few other subtleties that can be checked. If other authentic recordings of the same person are available, the voices can be compared with one another. There should be any abnormalities or differences in pitch, intonation, and speaking style. Deepfakes can have trouble accurately reproducing certain nuances of human speech. When the authenticity of the message cannot be verified beyond doubt, online tools and software can help identify a deepfake.”
A role model for youngsters, an abomination for criminals
Parents should be particularly careful when using social media, explains Mehlmann-Tripp: “Personal data such as address or account number should under no circumstances be disclosed. If possible, two-factor authentication should be activated. This creates an additional level of security. Also, to protect privacy, real-time geographic location data and sensitive or embarrassing photos should not be shared.”
If you still want to share private moments of your children with friends and family online, you should pay attention to the general selection of the pictures in addition to using filters to make the face unrecognizable. “Of course, photos of private moments on the beach or in the bathtub should not end up on the Internet,” warns Mehlmann-Tripp, referring to pedocrime on the Internet. And: “One should also always remember that with the help of AI, voices can be used in videos for deepfakes. Therefore, it is better not to share videos with sound.”
The best way to raise children’s awareness of all of these potential dangers is to set a good example for the little ones. “As soon as the child creates profiles on social media platforms, they should make sure together in the settings that only friends and family members can see the profile,” advises Mehlmann-Tripp. Last but not least, one piece of advice that many adults should also take to heart is important: “Before the child posts content themselves, they should be aware that once something has landed on the Internet, it cannot be retrieved.”