Too Good to Be True?
Safer Internet Day takes place on February 11th and the theme this year is "Too Good to be True. Protecting Yourself and Others from Online Scams."
Independent schools in Aberdeen recently got together to learn more about a specific growing scam targeted towards young persons called Sextortion. We learned important information from Annabel Turner, the director of Cybersafe Scotland.
Cybersafe Scotland supports trained specialists in online child protection. They work with schools, parents, and local authorities to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Cybersafe Scotland has some helpful information in combatting financially motivated sexual extortion, which includes information to help families in:
- hearing first hand about how the attacks happen
- the current patterns that are facilitating these attacks
- what the apps should be doing to prevent them
- what you can do to support your own family
- how to have conversations with your children
Keeping up with internet safety can feel overwhelming, and safer internet day reminds us that we can have simple conversations about online scams on a small level (such as shopping scams), to help with starting the conversations at a comfortable level when children are younger. If we train children to be "scam detectives" when they are younger, when they are older they can avoid more serious scams like sextortion.
Warm regards,
Valerie DeGraw
School Counsellor
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