Ever more connected and connected to social networks, minors are also exposed to data theft. As Safer Internet Day takes place this Tuesday, February 8, the Internet Without Fear program delivers many recommendations for parents. Here are five tips to better protect your children, empower them and anticipate pitfalls.
The year 2021 has indeed seen the time spent in front of a screen by children explode and the Safer Internet Day of 2022 imposes itself as all the more crucial.
Empower children from 8 years old
It may seem obvious, but still many parents do not take their children’s digital education seriously enough, as Vanessa Lalo, a clinical psychologist specializing in digital practices, recently explained at a conference organized by TikTok: ” From the age of 8, children should be made responsible. It is accepted that parents intervene to explain to their children that they must look left and right before crossing the street. It is therefore necessary to help the child to build himself by giving him good practices around digital technology. It is also important that the parents themselves know how to use these tools to better understand them. Let’s take the relationship to image and image rights for example: parents can raise children’s awareness by asking for their consent each time they want to take their picture or make a video and publish them on social networks. . The idea is to make them understand that it is important to have people’s consent and that they have the right to refuse”.
With regard to data theft, it is again necessary to be an educator and to explain what the child leaves as traces on the Internet if he is not careful. A photo with a friend, their age, address, etc. are all information that could be misused and especially against their will. And above all, again choose a strong password (the beginning of the lyrics of a song, a nursery rhyme, etc.) so that the child can easily retain access to certain locked accounts.
Install parental controls
Locking access to certain applications and restricting usage are interesting options that are accessible through parental controls. Any smartphone, tablet, console or PC offers them, while some applications also allow you to lock certain settings. Parental controls also allow you to manage screen time and prevent certain applications, software and games from being installed, or even lock access to websites. A good way to avoid seeing personal data leaked on dubious platforms or services.
However, parental controls have certain limits and if they can accompany children up to 8-9 years old, it is advisable to make pre-teens and teenagers more aware than to go through the ban, which “they will always seek to circumvent”, adds Vanessa Lalo.
Opt for closed discussion groups
As for messaging services for children under 12, several offer secure exchanges in private mode, such as the French Xooloo Messenger. This relies on a secure chat open to the youngest with the possibility for parents to know (via their linked account) with whom their child is conversing and which friends are associated with it. The use of applications such as Signal, Olvid or Skred should also be considered for children in the sense that they do not collect any data and where a conversation should be started by means of an invitation. The idea being above all to impose discussions in a closed circle, where no other third party can interfere. As parents, do not hesitate to create a group with your children and in agreement with the other parents of their friends.
Social networks not before 13 years old
Always attractive, with the boom of TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram, social networks are at the heart of many problems (data theft, cyberbullying, remote geolocation, etc.) for young people who do not pay attention to a few basic rules. The first thing to know is that the GDPR and French law prohibit access to social networks before the age of 13. A point that all the networks follow by asking newcomers to register their date of birth, as well as parental authorization. However, some college students will circumvent this by putting a false year of birth for example and certifying that they have had the agreement of their parents. According to an Ifop study for Kaspersky France (published February 7, 2022), 15% of 6-11 year olds have an account on WhatsApp, 14% on TikTok, and 12% on Facebook and Snapchat.
You should remain vigilant on this point and ask your children to have access to the content of their laptop to check the applications installed on it.
Create multiple mailboxes
When the age comes to create the first mailbox, it is advised by the CNIL to create several for different uses. Ideally, one to exchange with friends (to share only with them and not to give to anyone), another to access games and another for social networks. The idea being that if third parties can harvest their last two email addresses to send spam and targeted ads, these can be ignored.