Written by Claudio Laferla, MITA Knowledge Management Centre Executive

 In a drive to make the Internet safer for its users, especially for younger children, a campaign titled "Think before you click" was launched in Malta and supported by a number of entities.

Such endeavours are not only run locally but also across the globe through UNICEF, Safer Internet Day and many other initiatives. Using the Internet carefully is of outmost importance, but there are a few vital steps to be taken by everyone to ensure that the online environment remains safe.

In 2008, an Internet Safety Task Force was asked to draft a literature review, from which the report "Online Threats to Youth" was published. The report listed three main challenges at that time. These were solicitation, harassment, and problematic content. Through an online search, a particular site suggested that the challenges to which children using the Internet are exposed are namely cyberbullying, exposure to inappropriate material, online predators and revealing too much personal information.

From a closer point of view, both the experts' report and the information in the website refer to common challenges, except for the specific aspect of revealing too much personal information. While the first three challenges might be obvious, the 'too much information' challenge might be not.

Consequently, it is imperative that when using the Internet, you make sure to choose authoritative sites, especially when asked to create a personal account. Another important aspect is to have a strong password. These should be at least 14 characters long, and include, both upper and lower case text, numbers, special characters, and make sure that the word is not a dictionary word!

Tips for parents whose children use the Internet

The following tips could be useful for parents whose children make use of the Internet, either for leisure or for school work.

• It is important that you place the computer in a visible area of your home
• If your children have a computer in their room, make sure to leave the door open
• Envisage a time-limit through which your children can use the computer
• Search the sites yourself and then guide the child to the same sites
• To monitor their devices, access the 'History' tab from the browser to check the sites that were visited
• Invest some time to surf the Internet together with your children, so that you get accustomed to what they do when they are online
• In the case of social media, be aware of who are your children's friends
• If need be, create rules for your children such as requesting your permission to add friends
• The most important thing is to create trust, so that dialogue becomes natural and there is no need for children to hide information from you as their parent.